


No Grave Can Hold My Body Down

by glimmerFae (verfens)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Jesse died in poland instead of Ana AU, M/M, Overwatch Recall, Possessive Gabriel, Secret Relationship, ex-McMercy, unrequited mcgenji, with a sprinkle of Blackwatch era during the first half
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-03-17 07:27:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18960640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verfens/pseuds/glimmerFae
Summary: Blackwatch was assigned to Poland in Overwatch's stead, and Jesse McCree took Ana's place as sniper.He 'died' in it too.Years later, after the fall, after he failed to ride off into the sunset alone, he finds that the grave beside his own is just as empty under the soil.   While he and Gabe never said I love you before the end, they also never fell apart.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo, yeah a bitch does have other fanfics to finish, but I'm unfortunately well and truly stuck on Pretty paper for the moment, having only been able to write a 100 words at a time any time i've opened it, and i've been unhappy with a lot of what I have written.
> 
> On the other hand, this was an idea i aired on twitter that gained some popularity, and I've been extremely successful writing this and a few other things that I'll hold out on publishing so that yall get sprinklings throughout the summer. 
> 
> follow me on twitter @harmicist, you can yell at me all you want there! either for not finishing pretty paper yet, or over other transgressions. :P

"In a last minute mission decision, Strike Commander Morrison assigned the Blackwatch strike team to operation [REDACTED] in [REDACTED] Poland. Our goal was to escort a group of scientists out of [REDACTED], where they had been trapped under threat of Talon kidnapping them, their research on [INFORMATION REDACTED] far too valuable to let fall into the wrong hands.

Agent [XXXXXX] was given the order to act as sniper in Captain Amari's stead, as it was decided that he would be the best agent to fill the role. He was acting as the eyes of the operation, and we were able to begin escort of the hostages that were pinned down, clearing Talon forces as we encountered them.

At XX:XX hours, Blackwatch was engaged by a Talon sniper. Blackwatch strike team took heavy casualties, including agents XXXX, XXXXX, XXX and..."

Gabriel Reyes looked up at his old friend, the circles under his eyes darker than ever, his gaze harder than ever. "Do you really need me to tell you what happened next, Jack?"

XXXXX

The mission was practically babysitting compared to what they used to do, and McCree was hardly happy about sitting where he was like he was Ashe's goddamned vulture all over again.  

He'd bitched about it up and down the halls of Zurich, but Gabe had been making such a big fuss about it already, that he knew that there was nothing they could do to have it reassigned _back_ to Overwatch so close to go time, so there wasn't a thing he could do but the damn mission, and hope it’d maybe be enough to scrub their public rep like Morrison claimed it would.

However, listening to orders had placed McCree in the wings of the op instead of on the center stage.  He hadn’t bitched about how if Morrison had still been mad about King’s Row, he could have just forced Jesse to sleep in his own damn bedroom for once.  

No, instead Jesse held his gun at the ready, steady- and he took a shot at a masked Talon grunt from his place up in the wings.

There were reasons why he was assigned this post in Ana's stead, the least of which being the fact he'd personally been trained by her. 

His first target went down easy, and he took the next shot- only to miss.  The bullet caught the shoulder instead of the head, and McCree made a face.  Ana had taught him better than that, to be _cleaner_ than that, to cause no unnecessary suffering.  It conflicted with what Blackwatch did on the regular, but... he was here in her place.  And technically, Blackwatch was here in Overwatch’s place. This was a PR cleanup scheme, so  he figured he had to at least _try_ to play by her rules instead of by Blackwatch’s.

(It had been Blackwatch’s rules that had sent them into the freefalling downwards spiral that had been the past 2 years of their lives, anyways, so maybe it was time to rewrite the rulebook altogether.  He'd consider it even though he'd been one of the two who'd written it, if only to rub it in Moria's smug fucking face afterwards.  Maybe he'd write himself in as Gabriel's official SIC, to give himself the pay raise he fuckin' deserved.)

“ _How we looking up there, McCree_?” Gabe’s voice, overlain with static, called into the comm, and Jesse took a quick survey of the ground below, reloading his gun in the moments he took to do so.

“Well, all things considered, not looking too shabby, Commander- I think I can secure y’all enough cover to leave the building y’all are pinned down in.”  He confirmed, voice more chipper than his mood or the situation at hand. “Wait for the signal, and make a break for it.”

He was no sniper- no matter how much Jack had insisted that he was best for the role today- and really, he was no _Ana_ .  He didn’t have her bionic eye, and even though he could make his six-shooter do the impossible, he still had to contend with the fact he wasn’t using a sniper rifle.  To clear the way, he had to resort to and therefore rely on… his “ _party tricks_ ,” as Ana had put it once.

“ _If you manage to make this shot, McCree, I’ll slash the money you owe me in half_ ,” Fio chimed in, voice joking.  “ _Don’t, and I might just have to leave you here_.”

“Now jus- hold on there, gimme a minute.”

Everything went slow in that one minute, his eye picking up its usual focus, and he walked forward to the edge, picking the six best targets to give them the time they need to go.   He breathed, let it all out, and pulled the trigger repeatedly. In the few seconds that followed, one by one the shots hit and the talon mooks went down like dominos on the floor.

By the time the last one was down, Gabe was already moving the strike team out- hostages in tow.

Gabriel took cover with McCree’s watchful eye surveying the scene from above, eye throbbing from the intensity of his focus, the scientists they were guarding already winded from the quick burst to their second location. " _Where we heading McCree_?"  He asked as the scientists heavy breathing made the static from the comm only marginally worse.

"Looks like the alley to the right's your best bet." He remarked, squinting hard at the field for the best path forward- the one of least resistance.  If it was just the strike team, he wouldn't have hesitated to get them out as soon as possible, wanting to get in on the action himself already.  Unfortunately, they had a group of scientists with them, none of whom with considerable combat experience. "Then head through the warehouse, I'll scout out the other side for our next move."

All of a sudden, Jesse saw the telltale sign of a sniper.  One of the black-clothed bodies below dropped from the force of the blow.  Havoc broke out as scientists covered their heads and Blackwatch agents reeled around, trying to find the source of the fire, and Gabe suddenly shouted into the comm. " _Where's the shooter, Jesse_!?" He barked, but Jesse was already two steps ahead of his question.

Unfortunately for them all, the shooter was an additional step ahead of that.

"I'm looking!"  He groused, wishing he had an actual sniper scope to do this.  Another friendly body dropped as they raced towards the warehouse, and Jesse got a sinking feeling in his gut.  The bodies below had been shot at two different angles...from two different locations.

His train of thought was broken when his cover was suddenly compromised.

A bullet crashed against the building, and McCree pulled back from where he’d been peeking out.  "I've been engaged, I'm moving!" The man rolled backwards, reloading his gun in the process, before he got up to run best he could to reposition while Blackwatch had the cover of the warehouse.

He found his new spot, using his Blackwatch issued gun instead this time.

He needed the scope to engage any further.  He really was no Ana, and he found himself wishing yet again that she was here doing this instead of him.  "Y'all good down there?" He called in with an absent press of his thumb to his comm.

" _No_."  Fio panted, her voice stressed as she took the time to answer the comms. " _Two more of ours are down._ "

Shit. So they were.  From two different angles again, two more deaths on his hands that he would have to carry the weight of.

" _Jesse, do you have a handle on this sniper_?"  Gabe barked again, worry harshening the static of the comm, guilt of four more bodies on his shoulders.

"Reckon there's two, boss."  He commented with more sureness than he felt, looking through the scope again, eyes focused and breathing calming down.  He had to get this done, he thought as he looked to the skyline for the familiar smoke of Talon’s red snipers.

" _I wouldn't say that yet._ _Jack and I have heard chatter of a new Talon sniper_."  Gabriel disagreed with him, belatedly getting him up to speed.  " _Moves fast- like lightning. Bet this is him now_."

“And you tell me this _now_ , Boss?”  He didn't hold back his irritation, but his rant got cut off when something caught his eye.  Like a shot through the sky, Jesse saw a body zip through the air. "Now you're mine." Jesse growled.  "And here's a present for you."

With the press of a button, he got the drones to target the building the sniper had landed in. "Gabe.  Pink building- third floor corner window. Run like hell when y'all see the impact."

With no small amount of satisfaction, he watched the building get consumed in a fiery explosion.

" _Everyone, we're getting out- Jesse, that means you too_!"  Gabriel commanded as they broke cover, and everything in Jesse rebelled at the order.  He wasn't gonna let these Talon goons do this to him- to _Gabriel_ again. This was revenge for Rome, for _Venice_ , for every minute they’d had to sit on their hands and for every time their names had been dragged through the mud.

"No."  He growled lowly, rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck, waiting at the ready for the sniper to stay dead or engage again.

" _McCree, evac's on its way_!"  Gabriel shouted at him now, riled up by circumstances and shocked that Jesse was disobeying a direct order now, of all times. " _Wheels are up in five, now_ _get_ _out of there_!"  McCree chuckled at the irritated order as he reloaded his Blackwatch issued gun.  Gabe should have known by now that Jesse wasn’t any stranger to taking creative liberty with orders.

"C'mon now, Gabe.  You know me better than that. I'm _your_ closer."  He murmured, his conviction settling in his gut as his shoulders relaxed.  "I'll take care of this."

Gabriel's growl of frustration was cut off, before he went for a softer route.  " _I need you here with me on this plane, Jesse_." He tried, voice just shy of desperate.

"And I have unfinished business with this sniper- no worries, I'll meet you on transport.  You know I will, Gabe." Jesse talked back, before launching out of the window in a bold move, getting up and moving to get a better shot.

" _Jesse_ , **_disengage_**!"  Gabriel sounded like he was about to make his order a whole lot more official, and as he said, " _That is an **ord**_ ," Jesse cut him off altogether by pulling the comm out of his ear and shoving it in his pocket.

He wasn't going to walk away with this unfinished- he refused to do that _again_.  He _had_ to complete this mission.  He would take down this damn sniper.  This was why he was here- he was no Ana but he was Blackwatch's best sharpshooter and he had a long memory that he was gonna act on now.

The massive road sign above him got shot at, and it tilted forward with an awful drawn out groan.  It's fall forced McCree to haul ass and get out of the way or be crushed by the collapsing metal.  Not a bad shot. Dirty, but McCree was just the same- and would pay for it in kind.

Unfortunately for the shooter, the ballsy shot had let Jesse figure out exactly where they were.

He breathed, and pulled out his six-shooter again. This shot would be a Hail Mary if he ever saw one, but he had little choice as he allowed the world to refocus in red once more.  With a breath, he released his pent up energy and pulled the trigger, and the impact in the distance was especially satisfying.

That had been one of the hardest shots in his damn career, and now he was out of metaphorical juice.  His party trick took a toll on him, and his eye throbbed as he licked blood off his lip from where it’d dripped down from his nose.

It was worth it, though.  The sniper's time had come- and Jesse was ready to be judge jury and executioner.  He lifted his Blackwatch issued gun again, focusing through the scope to take the kill shot.

However, what he saw made his blood go cold and his body seize up, brown eyes widening- his deadeye throbbing in protest that he didn’t pay any mind to, the shock of the revelation taking priority over any other discomfort.

Amélie Lacroix stared back at him, her hauntingly familiar amber eyes angry, mouth set in a furious expression.

That wasn't fuckin' possible- he'd _been_ there on the scene, he'd been there after her husband's murder!  She'd been kidnapped again- they'd all thought she was dead!

No, wait.  McCree's hand fumbled for his comm in his pocket, cursing himself for having removed it, putting the puzzle pieces together instead of taking the needed shot.   _She_ had to have killed Gérard.  There wasn't any other explanation, and Jesse only just managed to turn on his comm to Gabriel shouting at him.

"Gabe," Jesse stressed the name, voice catching on it’s accent, horrified as he realized too late that he had allowed her to get the jump on him- he had hesitated when he shouldn't have, he could hear Ana's voice in his head berating him.  Like he was watching it all from outside his body or from the mission review videos where Ana picked apart all his mistakes, he watched her line up her shot, her scope glinting in the sunlight but, he couldn’t make his body move fast enough, couldn't make his body move at all, could barely make his mouth move as he stammered. "The shooter, the _sniper_ it's-"

His words, Gabe's voice was cut off entirely as the Blackwatch issued gun had its sniper scope burst in his hands.  He couldn’t hear his own scream as much as he _felt_ it, as pain ripped through his head, as his body crumpled onto the ground.  With a sickening crunch that coursed through his body with a sense of fatalistic finality, his comm was destroyed in the process.

He laid there screaming, the sound being swallowed up by the broken building, Gabriel’s lost in a dead line on a ship taking off now that the final agent on the field had died.  They had to go, even as Gabriel struggled, shouting into a comm that only had static as its returning call, the long tone uncaring to any of their feelings.

He was sorry Gabe.

His luck had finally run out.

He was at least, glad in those last moments, that…in spite of everything, that Gabe had gotten out of there alive.  There was one final thought that kept coming back to him, though, and it ached to think about.

But who would Gabe have now?

The broken man closed his eyes and let the pain wash over him, and allowed unwillingly for the darkness swallow him.

XXXXX

In Zurich, Gabriel Reyes sat in his mission debrief with Jack Morrison staring at him with his pity filled stare, and he was alone at the table.  Jack paused the recorder for a moment. "It's for our records, Gabriel."

"The names are redacted anyways. McCree's not dead, Jack. We need to go back and get him."

"You need to finish the debriefing before I can let you go do that, Gabe.  Just..one more line."  Jack reminded him, expression softening.   Jack said what Gabe had to regardless. "...And agent XXXXXX, Blackwatch's acting sniper."

Jack turned back on the recording for Gabriel to finish his statement, and the same familiar anger soaked through him as black smoke filled his lungs and mind and the void that was now in his heart.  

"... along with agent XXXXXX, Blackwatch's acting sniper."  He finished the statement, and Jack finally turned off the recorder.  

He looked up to the window where Jesse should have been smoking, only to find it vacant, and he could barely contain his grief at the idea that Jesse McCree, his lover, was actually gone, no matter how much he refused to believe it, how he was going to go back and look the moment he had a minute to find him.


	2. Operator Please, Put Me Back On The Line

The broken man, in fact, had survived against all odds.  

When he’d woken up in the hospital, he had barely recalled a thing.  He just knew, with a sick feeling in his gut, that no one could know what had happened- that people would be after him.

While he’d genuinely had amnesia for some time, he put pieces together faster than he'd told doctors.  He let himself stay as John Doe in the hospital, though he’d really been John Doe long enough that he cut down on his smoking habit into half of what he knew it had been, once he recalled who he really had been.

Or at least, who he thought he'd been.  Frankly, he was scared to admit that he wasn’t quite able to piece together the things he could remember, while removing them from the things he wanted to believe were true and things that came from nightmares.

He’d been discharged from the hospital after enough time recovering and once they were convinced of his recovery, and he’d gone on to start his new life, best he could.  People thought he was dead…and that was probably for the best. His life, for the most part, had been a long string of mistakes and ruined relationships, and the one that wasn’t…the only one that  _ hadn’t _ been completely tainted…well. 

His death wasn’t mentioned in the news, but he knew from the brief records of the mission he’d found in public record that he’d been one of the 5 unknown casualties experienced that day in Poland.

Unfortunately, the reason it was public record at all was…well.

He set down the flowers on a tombstone in the rain, the funerary services long over and carefully lit a cigarette, dropping the lighter to grab it with the same hand, just needing a short drag off it, paying at least some heed to the unintentional gift his stint in the hospital had given him. 

As he took it out f his mouth and turned his head to the right, he couldn’t help but see the plain tombstone that innocently illustrated his guilt and had so recently re-adorned for the world to see.

JESSE MCCREE  
2039-2069  
BELOVED FRIEND, TRUSTED RIGHT HAND

_ I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will. _

Etched into the stone was a lovely rendition of what looked like a cheesy postcard from Route 66.  The only thing missing from it was a hokey message saying,  _ “Wish you were here!”   _ Below there were flowers and notes that McCree didn’t dare touch.  They weren’t for him, not really. Not the man that sat here now.

No, what needed his attention was the grave before him. 

GABRIEL REYES  
2018-2070  
LEADER, FATHER, FRIEND

_ Tomorrow Hopes We Have Learned Something From Yesterday. _

He hadn’t pinned Gabriel as the type to get a John Wayne quote etched into his gravestone, but it fit, thematically, with the quote next to it.  Two famous western actors words, put side by side, to match how in life and now in 'death', Gabriel Reyes and Jesse McCree were inexorably linked to the other, their bodies and lives having twisted together and woven a complicated relationship, both in their work, in their friendship, and in the romantic sense.

Back when Jesse had been alive, he had been told that Gabriel was planning on being buried in the family plot, or that would have been where his gravestone would have wound up. Realistically, the US government probably had some fucked up condition that they would have had to burn the bodies of their ex lab rats, or at least give them back. 

At least Gabriel had had a plan.  Jesse had always flown by the seat of his pants, and of course that meant he'd never written a will, never outlined what was to be done in the case he died.  It wasn't like he had much to his name aside from a considerable criminal record.  It really was remarkable to him that they’d done something more than just a tombstone with his name and years spent on the earth.  It was almost heartwarming that they’d made something so…personally tailored to him.

But he wasn't there to consider how much he meant to others.  No, instead he sat there, flowers sitting in their plastic wrapping, white roses and baby’s breath and soft colored lilacs with the first stanzas of Walt Whitman’s famous eulogy, Gabriel’s love for war history and literature having bled into him over time the same way Jesse’s love for the wild west aesthetic had clearly left its mark on Gabriel, and Jesse leaned forward, almost inconsolable in his grief. 

In spite of that, he did not cry, not more than he already had.  He felt drained out, like there was nothing left of him to give. 

Today had been a wet rainy day, the weather surely crying with the world at the loss of not one, not two, but 3 of the original 6 heroes who came in, larger than life, at the time the world had needed them most- the omnic crisis of not even 30 years ago.  

Zurich had fallen, and with it toppled Ana Amari- whose funeral had been completed two days ago in accordance with Islamic guidelines even with the lack of the body. It had taken down the heroic figure of Jack Morrison- whose body was supposedly in Arlington, where they were moving the statue from Zurich- and whose funeral services were supposedly going on right now.  Jesse had spared a moment to watch from a distance, Reinhardt and Torbjörn had been pallbearers with Fareeha and hell, even Vincent had shown up to the mess of things.  The deaths of those two hurt Jesse in their own unique ways, the hero, leader and friend Jack Morrison had been, and how he and Jack had never quite gotten back on better terms following London, and Ana had been his mentor in shooting and more.  However, this hurt him far worse than them.

That was because here lied Gabriel Reyes, supposedly buried beneath this grave in this now lonely part of Arlington, his funeral having taken place much earlier this morning.  Jesse had been unable to attend for obvious reasons, but…he had been most surprised about the fact that they’d put his gravestone here as well. 

Gabriel and Jack had likely pulled some strings to do it, and his heart ached something fierce at the thought of Gabriel saying he’d let himself be buried in Arlington instead of his family’s lot in LA, only if they put Jesse McCree's grave there beside him in death as in life.

He ground his cigarette out into the mud, and took a shuddering breath as he looked up at the gravestone again.  He grabbed the slip of paper with a bit of difficulty, but managed to get it open to read it, only having planned a tiny piece for his own private memorial service. 

“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed,” He started, voice shaky and uncertain.  “And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night, I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”  He took the moment he needed to catch the sob in his throat before it became anything louder than a whimper to press the bouquet forward against the gravestone. “Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,” He took in another deep breath, and folded the scrap of paper, knowing the last words by heart.  The words he’d never said but had felt for a long time. “And thought of him I love.”

He let the rain wash over him for several long moments, waiting or some kind of emotions to clear through him, to make him pass from this awful state of grief limbo, but nothing happened.  Saying the truth didn’t bring him any sense of the closure he was craving.

And really…he hadn’t expected it to.  He let out another shuddering breath, and felt his wet face heat up as the impossible happened, and he started to cry again, his breath puffing out in warm pockets of fog as tears joined the rain. 

He’d been shot and he’d been meant to die there and he’d been buried, all the fittings and trimmings of his loved ones had been finished and Gabriel had chosen to lay beside him forever.

But Jesse wasn’t really buried there, he hadn't really died there.  He was out here. He had woken up in a hospital bed and told the nurse in a blind panic that no one could know he’d lived.  He was suddenly alone, floundering for purpose, for meaning in a world where Overwatch didn’t exist as he knew it anymore, where Blackwatch didn’t exist anymore _period_ , where Gabriel Fucking Reyes, commander, boss, and the center of his universe were all fucking gone. 

He was getting well and truly soaked, and the last thing he needed was to get sick.  He took in one final shuddering breath, wiped his remaining eye, before he picked up his lighter to put it away properly.

He turned towards his gravestone, where piles of things were so carefully left in such a way that they wouldn’t get destroyed.  The only chance that Jesse had of finding anything left of Gabriel was there, and so… His hand reached out, and he began gathering up the mementos left for the person known as Jesse McCree.

The sound of a gun cocking uncomfortably close to him before he could touch them pulled Jesse out of his reverie, the metal cold against the wet fabric of the cheap souvenir hoodie he wore.

“Stealing from the dead is in poor taste.”  Angela Ziegler’s voice- turned dark by sorrow and mourning and _anger that he'd tried to touch those_ \- greeted his ears to the joy of some small hidden part of him and the fright of the rest of his logical self.  “Put your hands up.”

She wasn’t a cop, she had no right to demand such a thing from him, but he lifted his right hand up obediently from where it’d been tantalizingly close to some folded up note on his grave.  It wasn’t like he wanted to talk back and out himself, if he had to. 

He didn’t want her to know.  He didn’t want  _ anyone _ to know.  Jesse McCree was better off dead, buried, with the person he loved most close by.  Whoever he was now, he could figure it out later; he didn’t want to be forced to address all his old failings.  He didn't want others to think they'd failed him.

“Moira, both hands.”  Angela snapped as she pressed the gun forward harder against the back of his head, and that made Jesse flinch in response.  The memory of the tall, thin woman and her ghoulish tendencies made him recoil.  Was he that skinny now, that he was indistinguishable with a hood over his head?

The gun dropped from his head as Angela, frustrated, reached over to grab the other arm, and McCree breathed in a sharp gasp unintentionally as her hand grabbed at the unfeeling flesh and yanked him by it only for her to get a floppy, rough hand and the edges of a tattooed arms.

“Doc,” He allowed, voice small. “Other one doesn’t work…and I’m not Moira.”

Angela withdrew entirely like she’d been shocked through the dead hand, taking several loud steps backwards behind him in the mud.  “No.” She said, her denial absolute. “No, you’re, you  _ can’t  _ be,” she struggled to find the words, before McCree let his hand drop from the air.  “You’re not him.” Angela argued, childishly.

“Doc…” Jesse sighed, slowly getting to his feet. 

“Turn around.”  Angela demanded, voice shrill in her desperate rejection of the answer before him.  “You’re not him, he died- he's _dead_. Turn around, Moira.”

“I don’t look too pretty anymore,” he mumbled, but Angela just shouted her demand again, and he was helpless but to oblige, muttering, “Alright, alright, alright…”

His lonely left eye met her fuming gaze that quickly melted into surprise and horror.

The scar was splayed around where his right eye had once been, and he hadn’t bothered to wear an eye patch, wanting to avoid as many peoples gazes as possible. Now he wished he had, as Angela’s pale skin turned a shade of green.  His left arm hung uselessly, muscle mass deteriorated from it, and so he waved with his right hand instead.

“Hey Angela.”  He said dryly as silence continued to drag on. 

She said nothing as she walked forward, eyes wide, gun dropping down and being put away. 

“You were killed in action,” Angela stated, dumbfounded. 

“I  _ was _ shot through the eye,” Jesse commented, voice edging on dry as he explained the obvious. “By the same sniper that took down 4 other men.  I can see why they mighta… _believed_  that.”

“Gabriel-  _ Overwatch _ looked for you,” She was a bit more outraged, but Jesse kept his calm, only taking a short sigh as he nodded understandingly. “Jesse, it’s been  _ months _ !  Almost a full year.  Why didn’t you come back?”

“Frankly, doc, I was discharged just last week.”  He murmured. “And while I look better now, _Jesus_ , Angela, I couldn’t remember my damn name for a good chunk of time.”  He defended himself, voice lower than he would have liked it to be. “I got shot in the face, a miraculous recovery wasn't exactly expected.”

“You never showed up in records, and we _looked_ , Gabriel spent ages trying to find any trace of you.”  Angela said, her bitterness at having not known about this more subdued.

“The way my nurse put it, I woke up, they were trying to figure out my identity, and I begged them not to tell anyone, ‘cause someone bad would find me.”  Jesse let out a breath. “And while I can’t say if my memory I based that plea on is real or not, but…I’m inclined to believe it.”

“And what memory was that?”  Angela asked, slightly skeptical, head tilting forward and her lips pursing in worry.

“The person who shot me.”  Jesse rubbed his dead arm nervously.  “I was expecting a typical Talon sniper.”  Words escaped him for a minute. “Smoke, and a red laser.  But… she wasn’t one of those.” Jesse explained, feeling somewhat crazy saying this. “I think…I think I saw Amélie Lacroix.  She didn’t…didn’t look like how she used to. She was fucking _blue_ …and her hair was crazy long- I'm talking it had to have gone down past her ass long.”

“Jesse,” Angela said, voice gentle, more openly concerned.  “Amélie is dead.” 

“That’s what I thought too,” Jesse’s brow crumpled as his gaze dropped, hearing how she didn’t believe him before he even said another word.  “The last thing I remember clearly was trying to get my comm ‘cause I had to tell Gabriel who the sniper was.”

He held up his bag. “I got the full mission report. The last thing Gabriel writes about me is that communication came back on briefly, and it _said_ that I was telling him something about the sniper.”

Angela’s expression had transformed from soft concern, to outright disbelief, and now something more like worry.  She bit her lip, and crossed her arms. “So… is that the only evidence you have?” She asked, knowing that McCree likely had done his fair amount of research if he had his mission report. 

“I found one more thing.” He murmured.  “I recalled this, vaguely, before the mission was transferred to Blackwatch…I remembered reading a mission brief addressed to Lacroix.  But…Gérard was dead. I assumed it had been a case of mislabelling, but…I found it, and the updated version as well.”  He tapped his bag. "It was addressed to Lacroix from Blackwatch agents.  A leak."  He hollowly connected the dots for her.

Any lingering doubt had since drained out of her expression, and Angela stood there, stock still, before she put a hand against her forehead, thinking it over.

“There were…rumors.”  Angela whispered, like she was afraid to say it. “We’ve all agreed to…not say anything about them, out of respect to our friends.”

“What were the rumors?”  Jesse demanded, suddenly having a real lead that wasn’t reliant to his own broken memory, and needing to hear about it.

Angela hesitated to tell him, chewing her bottom lip, before she let out a quick breath and put her arms back down to her sides, dusting off her front.  “It’s been…speculated that…the attack on Zurich, that…it came from  _ inside _ the base.”

“I’ve seen the photos,” Jesse denied, confused.  “Angela, the attack _clearly_ came from above.”

“There _was_ an air attack.”  Angela quickly agreed, rubbing her arm again.  “But…Jesse, if you’ve seen the photos, you should know that there had to have been explosives from inside the base as well.  We have reasonable suspicion that…there were traitors in Blackwatch. After your death…Gabriel  _ changed _ .  Some people- not me, of course- but, well…some people have started to say that Gabriel and Jack fought each other, and that Gabriel was responsible for the internal blast.”

“Hell no.”  Jesse refused to believe that immediately.  “Gabriel could get angry at Jack, certainly, but he wouldn’t have done this Angela, there’s no way in  _ hell _ .” He shook his head, as though it would dislodge the horrible idea from his head entirely.  “Gabe and Jack fought, but that was only ‘cause they were closer to each other than anyone else.”

“Was Gabriel closer to Jack, or to you?”  Angela phrased delicately, and Jesse’s fight came right out of him. 

He tried to speak a few times, but found no words.  Angela looked at him with something like pity. “How long, Jesse?”  He didn’t have to ask what she meant by that.

“Since…since around Venice, I think.”  Jesse stood there, and sighed, the hole in his chest hurting now more than ever.  “I can’t quite remember the details of it all…but definitely from before London.”

Jesse licked his lips as Angela closed the distance that had grown between them from the very incident that had put him and Gabriel onto the same plane that had given them the chance to… love each other, even without the words ever being said, until now.

“We had our…ideas, about that.”  Angela said, voice a careful murmur.  “Especially when we got to the ceremony and saw he’d requested to be put next to your grave.  It made… services easier, at least. We are all jetlagged from flying from Egypt. I can’t imagine we’d be happy to get back into a plane to go to California so soon after this ceremony finished.”

“This was a surprise to me too.”  Jesse was subdued, looking down to it, and gathering up all the notes from his grave.  “I just…I need to see if he left anything, Angela. That's why I was taking them.”

“You should come back with me, Jesse.”  Angela suggested, kind. “We’d all be shocked, but it’d be one less person to grieve over.  Fareeha was a mess today, she’d love to see that you’re…alive.”

Jesse hesitated, and it was clear in the sudden pain that flitted across Angela’s otherwise inviting expression that she’d noticed. 

“I unno if I can handle that.”  He declined, trying to be gentle.  “I just left the hospital, n’…I think everyone‘ll have too many questions.”  Jesse wrung his hand against his neck. “And it wasn’t like I had a lot of friends left.”  He was honest, even though the statement clearly hurt Angela.

“Jesse…” She murmured, before sighing.  “You’re…right, that it would be a lot. But… tell me, if I hadn’t run into you, would you have ever contacted…any of us?”

McCree kept quiet, before he eventually settled with, “Maybe.”  Angela was quiet, and Jesse sighed. “My memories of how…things were, when I died.”  He said, heavy. “And this grave here…they don’t quite match. I think…I need time.”

“Can I tell anyone?”  Angela asked, surprising him with her consideration to his privacy, considering they’d fallen apart over him keeping Moira a secret for Gabriel.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t…go around tellin’ jus’ anyone.”  Jesse murmured. “But…if you think it’d be necessary, well.  I guess I can’t stop you.”

He stood there for a few more minutes, before he took a step away.

Angela took his numb hand into hers.  “Wait.” She said, voice soft. “Don’t head out without giving me a way to contact you.”

“My comm’s been broken for a year Angela, I fell on it and the damn thing got completely trashed.” Jesse reminded, exhaustion seeping into his voice.  He wanted to go be somewhere else.

“Then I'll buy you a cell phone.”  Angela squeezed his hand, but he felt nothing, except…he couldn’t quite pull away, either.  “Come back to my hotel room, Jesse. I’ll leave you alone, I just…don’t disappear yet. That’s all I’m asking.”

McCree sighed, thinking that over for a long moment. “And you ain’t gonna trick me into seeing everyone,” he clarified, getting an eager, concerned nod.  With a heavy heart he gave in. “Alright, I’ll…I’ll come back to your hotel room, Angela.”

XXXXX

He should have included a provision about not giving him a doctors appointment while he was here, but now that he was Angela had her hands all over him and was giving him absolute hell.  Well, not really….but he wasn’t a fan of it either.

On the more positive side of things, she’d forced him out of his rain and mud soaked clothes from his trip here and into something more comfortable, the ridiculously soft plush bathrobe that the hotel had given her. 

“You know, I gotta wonder if you really brought me so that these places learn to stop giving you such nice things without letting you pay for them.”  He commented, referring of course to the way that they’d given him the stink eye for coming in from the funeral looking like the homeless man that he supposed he was, now. 

He could hear the tired smile. As she said, “I just think that it’s all rather wasteful. I’ve spent more time in active combat zones and military bases than I ever have in any sort of luxurious home.” 

“You and Ashe wouldn’t have gotten along at all.” Jesse murmured, laying there on his stomach and sorting through letters, finding one written in her familiar handwriting, her wax seal including an overly ornate lock that actually stuck out from the wax.  “Say, my funeral wasn’t public knowledge, was it?”

“I think the fact she’s a gang leader would cause the initial issue.  And no, it wasn’t.” Angela confirmed, slowly doing her examination, taking careful consideration with his paralyzed arm.

Jesse held up the letter, shaking it, before Angela paused, taking the letter opener from the drawer between the beds from the upgraded room and opening it for him. 

“ _ Jesse _ ,” The letter began, font elegant.  “ _ You son of a bitch.  How dare you do this?  First I find out that you’ve not been rotting in some unknown prison for 10 years, but you’d landed a cushy job in Europe with the same damn people who took us all down back then.  I was ready, prepared for you to show your face so that I could kill you myself.” _  Jesse read her vitriolic message, sighing, realizing that Ashe had undoubtedly seen him in the news and had likely put the pieces all together herself.

_ “But now I guess I’m not going to get the chance, am I?”  _ Her tone changed, and Jesse rubbed the font carefully.  “ _ I heard about it from someone shopping around for big explosives, that my score had been settled for me.  I didn’t believe them, at first. Then I come out here, and there’s your grave, complete with a goddamned cheesy quote from one of your favorite western actors and a picture of the gorge.” _

_ “Did we mean that much to you?  I had sworn you off; said that you had betrayed us all…but here you are, wearing Deadlock’s symbol on your belt all those years later.  I hope we did. I hope I did. I’d always thought that your death would finish our story, and yet…the longer I stood at your memorial, the more I knew it wouldn’t be true no matter how much time passed.” _

The letter finished with a soft admission.  “ _ I’m sure I’ll see you in hell, McCree.  Just wait for me now that you’re there.” _

_ “Your Calamity.” _

“Ashe…” Jesse murmured, rubbing her final words over again with a fingertip, before folding the letter.

For the moment, he set it aside, knowing he’d have to write her back.  Even if no one else could know he was alive…he didn’t want things to be left with Ashe like that.  They were two sides of the same coin, and he’d always felt things didn’t have to be the way he knew Ashe would have taken his changed allegiance.  

Plus, there was the admission that the news of his death had come from the people who’d done it, who’d been in the market for explosives.  That was all too convenient information for him to just ignore it. 

Most of the letters were from friends, and most were short.  Guiltily, some of the names didn’t quite land, while others took the air out of him.  Genji’s letter only contained two words, “ _ I’m sorry _ ,” while he was too embarrassed to read Angela’s in front of her.  Some were funnier, one only had a few lines and no signature, saying that they guessed his debt was good now, as they couldn’t expect to get paid money back from a corpse, especially since they couldn’t sell off a kidney from a person whose body was never recovered.

And yet…in spite of him going through everything, there wasn’t a single letter from Gabriel.  He kept going through the pile, heart aching as he realized that it wasn’t something Gabe would have done. 

“He said some beautiful things at the ceremony.”  Angela murmured, trying to ease the pinch in his heart. 

“I can’t hear that, though.”  Jesse looked to her as he rolled over, chest tight. 

Angela leaned down, and hugged him.

“I know you can’t.  I’m sorry, Jesse.”

XXXXX

Angela had to leave the hotel room to get McCree some new clothes and the comm she insisted on providing him, and she mentioned she’d be going out to dinner afterwards with everyone and that left McCree on the hotel balcony, sitting in the robe.

He only kind of wished he had a smoke, but Angela had provided him the hotel provided wine to keep him tided over.

With the envelope in his teeth and the letter opener in his hand, he ripped open Angela’s letter to him in her absence.

He figured he knew the contents, based off how she’d been acting all day, but…all the same.  The last he recalled things with her and Genji, he wasn’t even on speaking terms with either of them. 

He rubbed his hand over the paper before going to read it.  It was considerably shorter than the letter from Ashe, but it still kicked him in the teeth to read Angela’s heartfelt apology, wishing that…they’d ended on better terms, and that they’d actually managed to talk before it happened. McCree completely agreed.

They’d been friends for years, since they’d both joined on, since they were both the same age.  Genji had joined their circle as well, but…in the aftermath of Venice, McCree and Angela had a falling out, in their friendship and whatever they’d done romantically over the fact he’d followed orders and not told her or anyone else about Moira’s presence on the team.

Genji, the moment he switched teams, from Blackwatch to Overwatch, hadn’t spoken another word to him.  He instead became Angela’s closest friend, and that had hurt Jesse more than he had ever let on. Was he gonna accept this?  He didn’t really know yet. 

Instead he sat there now with letters to a dead man with apologies that weren’t ever actually meant for the person sitting there, and none of the damn words were from the person he’d really needed to hear something more from.

“You know, I kind of expected you to have been out here smoking.” Angela said, making McCree jump a bit and yelp out  _ shit _ , dropping the letters from his lap but managing to not spill the wine.

“Didn’t hear you come in.”  He said after a minute, before looking out at the night sky, wondering where all the stars were.  “I don’t smoke as much anymore. Benefits of being amnesiac in a hospital for months on end, I guess.”  He murmured, taking a sip of his wine, making a face at the taste. “Say, they don’t have any bourbon, do they?”

“Likely not.”  Angela said dryly.  “But the place we went out for dinner at did.”  She casually pointed out, and handed McCree a bag of clothes.  “I will say I got a lot of looks for this. They think I must have smuggled Genji here, but…well.  The truth’s more complicated.”

“Thanks, Angela.” Jesse said after a second, taking the time to digest her words. 

“The place I was going to get a new phone for you at closed.”  Angela admitted. “Really, I’d gotten so used to times stores operate at near Gibraltar and in Cairo that I didn’t manage my time correctly.  Things have all been…busy.”

“I didn’t have anywhere to go, I would have had to find a motel somewhere.”  Jesse said honestly, his chest aching at the admission, lips curled slightly, chapped.  “I’ll…stick around a bit.” He grumbled, but Angela’s face lit up with a relieved smile.  She knew well that there wasn’t anything here that could have hoped to contain him had he wished to wiggle his way out.  The thought of an injured (ex?) friend on the streets likely wasn’t one she wanted to think about.

He got up, and went to get changed into the new clothes.  They weren’t anything fancy, but that was fine. They were at least in his size, and he was able to feel clean for the first time in several days. 

He came out, and gave Angela a tired smile, before putting on the eye patch she’d bought him.

“You know, we could probably look into procedures to repair your eye.”  Angela murmured. “A cybernetic eye could look rather handsome.”

“Thanks, doc.”  Jesse turned her down, soft about it.  “But I think I’ll be fine keeping that, as a reminder.  The arm, though, I could be talked into doing something for.”

“How about meeting up with Torbjörn tomorrow to discuss it?”  Angela put out there, seeming hopeful, if faking innocence in her intentions. 

When he’d come to D.C., he’d never had any intentions of showing his face and talking to anyone.  He’d come to mourn Gabriel and then get out. Instead, he’d been caught and shown just how much people besides Gabriel had…cared about him.  Remembered some other things. He was chasing the life of a dead man, and that wasn’t something he could do.

But there were folks here who wanted the live version just the same, and…with Gabriel gone, he really felt like he needed something in his life.

Did he want to go see everyone?

“Angie.”  Jesse sighed.  “I’ll think about it, alright?”  He went to the bed, and crawled in.  “Go somewhere with a nice liquor menu and I’ll really put some thought into it.”

Angela’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.  “I’ll ask Reinhardt to make the reservation, then.” 

XXXXX

That was how Angela was able to convince him to see their remaining friends again.

The next day, they were called over to their hotel suite before dinner to discuss some things.

He was sitting at the swirling chair, trying hard to write Ashe a response when the knock came, and Angela rushed over to open the door.  Reinhardt was the first one to see, literally peering over the rest of the crowd while Fareeha talked with Angela in hushed tones and Torb’s view of things was completely obscured.

Reinhardt gently pushed Fareeha out of his way, Torbjörn making a grunt of annoyance telling Reinhardt not to push him around, but Reinhardt had locked eyes with Jesse.  Jesse had just lifted a hand to wave at him, and Reinhardt gave him a long hard look, moving into the room and making a beeline. 

“What is it Reinhardt?”  Fareeha asked, sounding overly tired as Reinhardt walked right up to him, and took a very long blink, trying to understand what it was he was seeing. 

“McCree?”  Reinhardt put a hand on his shoulder, and Jesse nodded. 

“Yeah.”  He gave a halfhearted grin.  “Look who the cat dragged in.”

Angela huffed at the comment, as Fareeha heard McCree’s name and pushed in as well, along with Torbjörn putting the dots together. 

“Hey y’all.”  McCree tried to put on a brave face and let Fareeha look him over wildly in concern, Reinhardt and Torbjörn stuck in shock as they went through trying to understand what this was, what it meant. 

“Jesse, we thought you were dead.”  Reinhardt eventually spoke up, blue eyes hurting, face set in a sorrowful look. “Gabriel insisted, of course, that you survived, but…we never found any evidence of your survival.”

“I mean- I got shot in the eye.”  Jesse tried to ease things. “By all means, it should have killed me. But I woke up in a hospital, hardly remembering a damn thing.”  He gave a dramatic sigh as Fareeha put a hand over her face, trying to school her reaction to the news. “But I lived, and…yeah. Angela found me at Gabe’s grave.”

“That’s where…” Torbjörn awkwardly noticed, and Jesse used his hand to rub his neck.

“Yeah.”  He gave a more genuine smile.  “Thanks, it was really pretty. Same for…everything y’all said about me.” Reinhardt went rather pink, and Fareeha’s exasperated, sheepish looks keep Torbjörn’s peeved one from bothering him too badly. 

Things went quiet for a long moment, before Jesse decided to come to terms with everything and own it.  “I’m sorry, it took so long. I needed time.” He gave them all regretful looks. “I thought I’d have more time…”

“Gabriel would have understood.”  Reinhardt immediately comforted, offering the younger man a hug.  “It was not your fault, Jesse.”

“He’s really gone.”  Jesse’s voice was wet as the much larger man enveloped him in what he would have otherwise considered an overenthusiastic hug.  “I should have come back sooner.”

“He would be glad to hear you came back at all.” Reinhardt assured.  “We…can’t change our mistakes.” His voice was shockingly mature, and serious.  “We can only try to live with the consequences. You’re here now.”

Reinhardt let him go, and McCree took in a deep breath.  “Thanks, old man.” He gave him a tired grin. “Hey, I’ve joined the one eye squad.”  He hummed, looking around. “Unfortunately, mine didn’t give me that great a scar.” 

“It’s no joking matter.”  Torbjörn chastised him, only semi-seriously.  “And what happened to your arm?” He noticed, poking at the limp limb tellingly. 

“Well, always liked the look of yours.”  McCree shrugged off his concern. “Now I think I oughta get one just like it.”

“Very funny, Jesse.”  Fareeha rubbed her temples, patting him by the shoulder.  “I think, though, we all have a lot more catching up to do…and a dinner reservation to make.”  She looked to Angela, sighing, before dropping her arm again. “The real question is, though, before we go… are you going to tell anyone else?”

Jesse struggled with that for a second.  “To be honest, I didn’t know if I should tell y’all.”  He rubbed his neck, and both Fareeha and Reinhardt had to hide stricken expressions.  “I worried, about consequences, and if it’d be better if I just…stayed dead. But y’all know now.  I won’t…go back to working for Overwatch, just think of the paperwork,” he only partially joked. “But…I wouldn’t mind if someone told Genji, if they saw him,” Everyone spared Angela a glance, before Jesse shrugged.  “Other than that…I’ll figure out what the hell I’m gonna do, one way or another. I wasn’t kidding, though, about the replacement arm.”

“We should talk about Overwatch over dinner.”  Torbjörn muttered. 

“Over drinks.”  Reinhardt agreed solemnly, sounding rather depressed by the reminder of the organization.

Fareeha leaned over, and quietly told Jesse that Reinhardt had been forced to retire within weeks of his death. 

“What!?”  Jesse exclaimed, outraged.  “They can’t just do that!” He spat, angry for the big man. 

“Unfortunately, they could, and they did.”  Reinhardt murmured, rubbing his neck. “But we all have stories to tell now, and they’ll be easier to swallow with drinks.”

“Won’t argue with that,” Jesse agreed wholeheartedly, and together they walked out, finally talking, and thinking about something aside from the grim reality of their fallen friends for the first time since the day it’d happened, less than a week ago. 

Reinhardt was right, in the end.  There wasn’t anything he could do now, but try to move forward.

He thought, at least, that this would be what Gabriel would have wanted for him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look 4 part 2 in June !! nice things are always appreciated + loved my dudeskis.


	3. Tell Me You Love Me, Come Back and Haunt Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy pride yall!!!!
> 
> I moved the summary into the first chapter bc i felt like it was too long for a summary...so yeah.

Some people said Overwatch went out with a bang. That wasn’t quite true. While the most recognizable symbols of it had gone up in smoke and fire and down in ash rubble, the organization limped on for about another year afterwards. They made sure that legislation went through before the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks, so that people could better compartmentalize their mourning and vitriol for the same dead people and symbols.  The whole thing was a sham and a mess and a death by inches, more so a blessing once it was over than an end in glory.

While Jesse had never gone back, he’d watched from relatively close by, as Angela and Torbjorn worked together to get him fitted with a working left arm. He really did feel Reinhardt’s plight, to be so close to it all, and yet have nothing to do. No actionable steps to take.  It was harder than he thought it'd be, considering he'd been away for so long.   

They kept his secret within their small inner circle, and they all watched as the once mighty symbol for peace and progress go out with hardly a whimper.

“Director Petras oughta be happy.” Jesse murmured from Reinhardt’s couch on the day legislation finally went through.  Angela and Torbjörn were out at the ceremonies, to be witnesses to the end.

The older man gave an angry laugh. “He only to finally have his name on something.” Reinhardt joked, disgusted. “And better yet, he finally got the complete control over us he always wanted.”

“Do you think they'll really try to prosecute us if we do try and act?” McCree hummed, raising an eyebrow at him as Reinhardt brought over beers. 

“I think they’ll do it if it happens in the beginning.” Reinhardt admitted. “With time, no doubt, funds to actually take us down will trickle away, having been diverted to other organizations within the UN. Some of us, no doubt, have already been approached by other organizations within the security industry.”

“I heard Fareeha has a callback for a position with Helix Industries.” Jesse agreed, and Reinhardt gave a hearty grin, nodding at that before sobering some. “But it ain’t like a whole load of us are eager for a position in government anymore, and while some of our departments, R&D, especially, have transferrable skills…well. Some of us are gonna have a hard time putting down the gun.” 

“Or hammer.” Reinhardt suggested innocently enough.

McCree lifted an eyebrow, and Reinhardt waved a hand to brush it off. “I agree, Jesse. I have heard from many of my former comrades that they have turned to mercenary work.” His voice was heavy, as was his heart. “But while it has its…outer similarities, to Overwatch, it’s not quite the same, is it.”

“We can’t always know that we’re doing what’s right in a merc environment.” Jesse nodded his head, thoughtful. “Same with bounty hunting. But that’ll be for us younger folks to worry about.” McCree pressed him on the issue. “Aren’t you retired now?”

“I am.” Reinhardt huffed, sitting down on the couch and making the cushions move, holding his beer tight so that the motion didn't make him spill. “But not by my choice. I have dedicated all my life to protecting those who need it,” he reminded Jesse, looking to him with more seriousness in his eyes than was typical for the big man. “I have a duty, and I must fill it.” 

Jesse gave him a lopsided grin. “Guess I wont be able to couch surf here anymore, then, will I?”

“Not here,” Reinhardt agreed, patting McCree’s shoulder. “But if you and I were to cross paths on the battle field, you always know that you are welcome.”

McCree held up his beer glass to Reinhardt, to cheer to that, and the older man did so a bit too strongly, making a bit of the beer slosh out the side of the glass. McCree saved it with his mouth, Reinhardt laughing jovially at Jesse licking up the drink.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” Jesse groused, and he sat back up a few minutes later, taking a paper towel to his hand and glass. “Still, can’t imagine that Angela’ll be too happy with you going off on your own.”

“Angela knows better than to try and change my mind once it’s made up!” Reinhardt chuckled. “And I won’t be going alone, never fear.”   
  
“Sorry old man, you know I ain’t gonna follow you around. My fighting style and yours go together like oil and water.” He instantly turned down, to the sound of more laughter.

“No, no.” Reinhardt assured. “I would have never dreamed of such a thing, McCree. It was hard enough working with Genji, the few times I was granted the chance. Never mind Reyes’ right hand man.” He gave McCree a knowing look that made him pink up a bit. “No, my lovely goddaughter has graduated high school, and she approached me about working alongside me.”

“You’re gonna have one of Torb’s spawn for back up?” He questioned as politely as he could, raising an eyebrow. “Last I checked, they were all into engineering, computing and mechanics.”   
  
“Brigitte is his youngest by far, though.” Reinhardt reminded. “She’s turning 18 next month, and Torb’s next youngest turns 30 next year.”

“ _Right_ , Brigitte.” McCree recalled her after a long minute of thinking about her. “She was the other Overwatch brat, wasn’t she? She spent too much time holed up in Torb’s workshop for me to spend much time with her. The one thing I remember really strong, she tried to make a…jetpack for her cat?”

“Yes, to all of those. She and Fareeha are still very close, too.” Reinhardt assessed dryly. “Her parent’s house has nieces and nephews closer to her in age than her siblings. I expect that she wants some time out of the house if she’s asking to come along with me.”

“I mean, if she takes after Fairy at all.” McCree teased a bit. “Then undoubtedly she’s a bit eager to see how many of your stories are true. Ya ready to disappoint her?” He prodded, only for Reinhardt to roll his eyes.

“I’m starting to think that you might need some help recalling how great my stories truly were! And that the amount of time you’ve spent with Torbjörn has turned you a bit too sour.”

Jesse snorted, and shrugged quietly. “Maybe so.”

They sat there, enjoying their beers, exchanging stories about Fareeha and the better days, before Reinhardt finally asked the fated question. “What will you do, Jesse?”

“Well.” He sat up. “I have a functional left arm again.” He held up the newly attached prosthetic. “And I have lots of unfinished business that needs to be taken care of. People that still need a man like me to do some fancy shooting.”

“So, you’ll take up being a mercenary as well.” Reinhardt assessed quickly, and McCree nodded.

“More of a bounty hunter, really.” He hummed. “There’s a lot to do, and a lot of justice still needing to be served. Talon needs to be answered, and…well. Gérard’s dead, Blackwatch is gone, and now so is Overwatch.”

“Be careful, McCree.” He cautioned, taking the empty glass from the man who relaxed on the couch again. “You’ve already been killed once. I doubt they’ll make the mistake not to check the body again.”

“No one knows that better than me, Rein.” Jesse dipped his head solemnly. “I know what I’m getting myself into a whole lot better than a lot of the other folks who are going out into the post Overwatch world.” He rubbed his neck. “I’ve been practically living in one since I died. I’ve been on my own.”

“Just be careful, Jesse, I know that it is, perhaps, hypocritical of me to ask, but Fareeha, Angela, they shouldn’t lose you again so soon.”

“I ain’t planning on dying again any time soon.” He confirmed dryly. “First time sucked plenty.  Now you promise on not going out and doing jus’ that, you hear? I’ll be very upset if you make any of us bury one of you any time soon again.”

“I could go out like my master,” Reinhardt fantasized teasingly, prodding him. “In a blaze of glory! My body left as a memorial to my heroic actions! Now that would be how I envision it! But, do not worry, I have no immediate plans for such a thing.”

“Let’s keep it that way.” McCree shoved back at him, appreciating the newfound strength his robotic arm gave him. “Keep in touch, best you can. I know some parts of Europe are a bit messier than others, same true of everywhere now. Angela got me this damn phone for a reason, it’ll piss me right off if none of y’all use it.” 

“I’ll do my best.” Reinhardt assured. “It might be difficult to keep you a secret from Brigitte, but I will try, my friend.”

XXXXX

Overwatch went out with a whimper and it’s remnants scattered to the wind.

Reinhardt went off to do his thing, Torbjörn returned to Sweden to his wife and was apparently trying to live his version of a quiet life, homemade monstrosities and all. Angela had been absolutely snapped up by some combat medics association to give her some direction about where her talents were needed most.   Fareeha moved to Egypt to start up her new position in Helix Securities, but she would be moved around as needed.

And McCree had his life, now free of every other remaining string, to get on with. 

Everyone’s stories sounded like some version of a happy ending. And then the cowboy rode off into the sunset was his. Yet he was neither happy, nor convinced that it would be the end of his story.

He arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and put his letter addressed to Elizabeth Ashe in the mailbox at the airport. One story was closing- had closed, if he was honest with himself. Overwatch was gone, and he was fairly certain it’d never come back. Not as it was. Not without Jack, or Ana, or…

McCree walked forward, the airport empty at this time of night. The flight across the Atlantic always took the stuffing out of him, and he was ready to vanish.

His heart constricted as he passed by the only open store remaining, one of the little convenience stands. Overwatch’s shutdown was still front-page news, nothing exciting. No, what drew his attention to this particular picture was that it had Gabriel’s face on it. 

 _END OF AN ERA_ , the cover read. The author boldly stated, “ _Many of us remember Overwatch for its greatness. We dive into newly public records to recall its darkest moments."_

He picked up a copy, and a water bottle, paying for it with a few credits from his pocket, before walking away, the cashier not even bothering to engage in a conversation with him at this time of night. Neither of them wanted to be there, and it showed.

Slowly, he walked toward the exit, and the elevator. He pressed the button, and the thing was ready for him. The perks of being there in the dead of night, he supposed. McCree walked inside, and settled at the back, resting his ass on the metal handles on the walls.

He put the water bottle in his bag, before opening up the cover of the magazine he’d bought. Sure as hell, the opening spread was pictures taken straight from Venice. 

_“As the world approaches the first year anniversary of the terrorist attack that destroyed Watchpoint: Zurich, and killed 1,300 employees and civilians on base, some have questioned why the United Nations has pushed the Petras act through the security council so quickly. However, new information on Blackwatch that has been revealed to the public has proven that they had no shortage of reasons to want to close this chapter of history as fast as possible._

_Since the passing of the historic Petras Act, for the first time ever, journalists and governments around the world have access to the Overwatch archives. While the archives will likely take years to comb through completely, it includes no small chunk of information on the secretive Blackwatch._

_The world’s first introduction to the shadowy world of Blackwatch was in Venice, following the unlawful extrajudicial assassination of Antonio Bartalotti by Commander Gabriel Reyes. In the immediate aftermath there was a wave out outrage, the scandal blowing up in Overwatch’s face. However, at every step of the way, there was red tape and redacted information that prevented the progress of external investigations into the true nature and tactics of the covert ops branch- or, as many public officials, including Director Petras, have taken to calling it, Overwatch’s hired death squad.”_

McCree stopped reading there. With a heavy heart, he ran a finger over Gabriel’s grainy face in the poorly taken early morning photos, the light from sunrise not yet being bright enough to capture his face well enough.

The elevator doors opened, and that meant it was time to get moving. He had a long way to go, and not enough nighttime to do so comfortably. With only the echo of his boots hitting the pavement and echoing in the parking garage, he had time to think back on Venice.

That moment had been their most strained, McCree knew. In hindsight, Gabriel had had too much on his plate. McCree, while he’d done what he could, wasn’t enough in the face of the other forces at play. He should have known that Gabriel would have been angry over what happened to Gerard, the agent only younger than McCree by a few years. 

The same age as Reyes’ kid, and Talon had left him clinging to life, his young wife worried sick. Blackwatch agents- good agents- killed or left burnt and injured from the destruction of Rome. McCree had been thinking on doing the same, hell, he’d insinuated as much. Gabriel had told him they wanted the same thing, and they’d get it. They’d gone to Venice after it, him and Genji and Moira and Jesse himself. Staked out the manor for about a week. McCree’s cover job had gone a little sour, and Gabriel had flirted with the waiter a bit too much for Genji and Moira’s comfort.

_“It’s Fran’s big Italian business trip that’s turned into a vacation,” Gabriel had defended later at the safe house. “And he’s newly single and interested.”_

_“I thought it was in poor judgment to use our own lives as backstories for our undercover identities.” Moira questioned, and Gabriel removed his business dress coat, unbuttoning the shirt._

_“And weren’t there any other, far more appealing people there tonight?” Genji muttered, taking the electronic equipment back from them. He’d been the one to keep watch and maintain the channels, as it was pretty hard for him to hide any part of his physical appearance, and he wasn’t interested in trying either._

_“I’m wounded, Genji,” McCree tossed his wire set up back at the younger man. “You found me attractive enough when,”_

_“That’s enough,” Moira stressed, cutting him off before McCree could publically embarrass Genji’s taste in men after questioning Reyes’. “Please, we are all still stuck here for the next few days together in close quarters.”_

_“You’re the one who vetoed the band idea, Moira,” Gabriel reminded, sliding on his black work shirt, before looking at her questioningly. “There’s still time to change that, you know, if you keep complaining.”_

_“Please, spare me from further humiliation.” Moira’s lips curled at the thought. “Watching McCree flounder about is already punishment enough, without having to worry about playing instruments in the hall of our enemies.”_

_“We could just send me in,” Genji suggested, only slightly more helpfully. “I was trained for this my whole life, Commander. I can be in and out, unseen and undetected, with the information you’re looking for.”_

_“We’re not just after Antonio,” Reyes disagreed. “While I definitely considered using your skills like that, Genji, the goal of this mission is to draw Antonio and his Talon associates out into the daylight, so that Overwatch’s anti-Talon operation can better get a grasp on them and start carrying out better ops.”_

Something had been drawn into the light of day, alright. It just hadn’t been Talon.

It’d been them, and now they’d all suffered the consequences.

He still didn’t know what had come over Gabriel, to take their carefully laid plans and literally send them bursting out the window, setting off the alarms and waking up every damn person in Venice on their mission to just get the hell out of dodge.

He found Deadlocks corner of the garage, filled with nice looking bikes and cars. Deciding that’d been enough reminiscing on the incident and how the Public had learned about them for now, he shoved the magazine into his bag and picked a nice looking bike. He hotwired it, of course, it wasn’t like he still had a skeleton key to any of her bikes in his back pocket, though that’d be awful convenient right about then. Ashe would get it back soon enough, he reasoned.

He was headed straight to her manor.

 _Ashe,_ he’d written. _Got your letter. While I suppose now you have the chance to settle your score with me, I hope I at least get a chance to explain what went down before you finish the job the buyer didn’t quite do right. Not for lack of trying._

_I’ll be back at the start, Calamity, in a month’s time._

_Your Vulture._

_McCree._

This was almost certainly a mistake, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t made worse decisions over the years. Worse case scenario was that she’d settle things- or try to-, and he’d end up with Gabriel, or with her back on his tail. 

At best, he’d have a new lead on who killed Gabriel Reyes and destroyed whatever remained of his life, and maybe some closure at the end of the day. Maybe he was hoping for too much, but he figured it was tempered by his acknowledgement of the very real possibility that Ashe would kill him on sight without even giving him a chance to speak up and explain what all had happened since that fateful last day they’d been on the same team in Deadlock gorge. How he’d gotten from the interrogation room to the cover of any newspaper in the world, Overwatch’s name attached to him. Hell, that was assuming she hadn’t seen him in the paper earlier, as he’d made some kind of name for himself just working alongside Overwatch, before Venice dragged his name through the mud.

The dry air of New Mexico surrounded him in its warmth and familiarity and comfort. It accepted him back into his arms, and as the night swallowed him whole, as darkness drew near as the lights from the cities faded in the background, as the stars showed their faces as he escaped civilization, he allowed himself to be caught in nostalgia.

He remembered the way that Gabriel had looked at him as he’d told Genji that, no, there weren’t more attractive men there that night. He recalled the way, as angry and fed up as they’d ever been at each other, Gabriel had told him that he would need Jesse.

He recalled the way that they made up in the weeks and months that followed Moira’s judgment that they were “adorable,” and how they took up each other when their old relationships moved on without them in better, healthier ways than Jesse or Gabriel knew how to.

He couldn't remember the first kiss, but he knew it happened, he knew they’d been together, and he knew that he loved Gabriel.

Gabriel Reyes was dead, but Jesse was fairly certain, now, that Gabriel had loved him too.

XXXXX

The field of bright purple bluebonnets that grew on the build up to Ashe’s family manor was really something in the late spring and early summer that Texas these days always managed to blend together under the radiating judgmental sun. When he’d been a kid, it’d taken away his breath, but as an adult, it reminded him of the best of times and the worst of them too.

He walked through the field, and saw that the gate to her estate was left wide open, and there was a familiar figure, dressed in black, standing in the open space where the black gate had been tossed open.

Without fear, he pressed on. He approached, red serape covering up his metallic arm until the sunlight hit the fingers and caught the glint of it.

Ashe looked like how he’d figured she grow up into her features. Her hair was cut short, and she opened for a less schoolgirl esque look, more mature and closer to what Gabriel would consider a badass costume.

He made a mental note to keep that to himself as he approached her.

“Jesse McCree.” She tested the name aloud, red eyes taking him in as he looked up towards her, resisting the urge successfully to take out a smoke. “Been a while, got your letter in the mail.  Who even uses snail mail these days.”

“Well, Ashe, typically those who are a bit behind the times who might else not get them period.” He said, relaxing his shoulders. “I got yours too, finding it on my grave, now that was really sweet of you.”

Ashe bristled at that, and she cut to the chase. “I was told you were dead, clearly your newer companions thought the same.” Her eyes narrowed. “Unless you’re a two time traitor.” 

He was now standing just out of reach; the distance would be so incredibly easy to close, if Ashe wanted to. “It wasn’t by my choice.” He flicked his eye patch up. She carefully hid her flinch with a blink, but he picked up on it between how well he knew her ins and outs and how he’d been trained to perfection by his time in Blackwatch.

“Now that looks ugly.” Ashe murmured coolly, trying to keep her act on.

“Reckon it does.” He flipped the eye patch down. “Was in the hospital most of last year. The sniper very nearly got me, especially if they’re so bold as to gloat about it, they didn’t expect this outcome either.”

“Always check the body.” Ashe tsked her disapproval. “Always tie up your loose ends.”

“I know, what a careless mistake.” McCree bemused. “I can’t complain about her making it though. Means I’m still here.”

“Why’d you message me, Jesse?” Ashe asked. “You knew I was planning on killing you the first chance I got, before the accident. You could have gone on playing dead.”

“Do you think I was happy about joining the folks that took me down?” Jesse didn’t answer her, instead calling attention to the basic thing she was missing.

She stood there quietly for a minute, before she shifted. “It was the thing I always struggled with. I thought I knew you, Jesse, could trust you. You were my family. And family’s always there for you. You suddenly weren’t there, you were off doing your own thing.”

“I was offered a deal.” McCree answered her unspoken question. If he hadn’t done it willfully to antagonize her, why did he do it?   “It was after the bust, long after they’d cleared out the gorge, flushed us out. I was sitting in one of their interrogation rooms, only for their sniper and the leader of the operation to walk in. I was told to shut up and listen because they wouldn’t repeat themselves. I was a no goddamned sunvabitch but I had talent, and it was a damn impressive one at that.”

“Deadeye.” Ashe put two and two together quickly. “So that’s why they targeted your perch, then.”

McCree nodded, glad she picked up on that. “I also gave military combatants and professionally trained snipers difficulties, with a six shooter at that.” He reminded nonchalantly. “Ana Amari, one of the worlds top snipers, singled me out to commander Reyes. Anyone can be taught to shoot a gun, she’d told me. But not everyone could make those kindsa shots. Those were limited to the truly talented. And so the leader, Gabriel Reyes, offered me a choice. I could rot in prison, or I could work for him.”

“I would have gotten you out.” Ashe assured him, but McCree shook his head. 

“They knew ‘bout you, Ashe. Had this impressive dossier on all of us. Reyes made no qualms saying that the danger I posed to the public would warrant the toughest jail they could shove me in. One where no amount of money could buy my way out.” He closed his eyes. “I told Reyes he could look down on me all he wanted to, but those kindsa tactics, well. They weren’t all that different from the ones we used in Deadlock. And I accepted.”

“You’re back now, though.” Ashe murmured. “Overwatch’s gone, McCree. You could just as easily join my crew again, and we can start again like it never happened.”

“You know I can’t do that, Ashe.” McCree turned her down, not missing the flicker of disappointment in her expression. “I have scores to settle now. The bitch that shot out my eye? Made my arm paralyzed, forced me to get this prosthetic? She’s still out there.” He gestured to the world away from her manor. “And I ain’t intending on letting them get away with that.”

“So you did change sides.” Ashe growled at him, anger rearing its head again.

“It doesn’t have to be like that, Ashe.” Jesse disagreed. “In spite of everything, I never quit caring about you. You were my family too, and I was cut away from all that. I might have changed over the years, but that stayed consistent. I never quit, Ashe.”

“If it doesn’t have to be like this, then what exactly are you suggesting?”

“Well,” Jesse gave her a big grin. “According to the news, I died a member of a hired death squad, and by engaging in this hunt I’m about to do, I’m engaging in highly illegal behavior.” He shrugged. “What I’m suggesting is that you help me settle this score. I introduced you to this life…let me introduce you to this new one.” McCree held out a hand to her.

Ashe turned her face to the ground, sitting on his words. “Well, Jesse.” Ashe murmured. “It’s…something, now isn’t it.”  
  
She looked up towards him, and gestured out to the world. “You can leave.” She allowed. “If I chose to follow ever, ‘cause I certainly ain’t about to do so now, know that’ll be on my terms.” She growled at him, eyes narrowing. “Now get, Jesse, I need…time to consider your offer.”

“Alright, Ashe, I’ll get.” He murmured, voice calm. “…Just one question.” He waited to see if she’d protest, and when she said nothing, he asked. “The folks who killed me. Did you wind up getting any information about them?”

“They weren’t important folks, the ones I saw were just mooks.” Ashe admitted, even. “But they were funded by an organization calling themselves Talon.”

“Mm.” McCree nodded. “That’s not new information but…thank you, Ashe. Say hi to B.O.B. for me, if nothin’ else, I’m sure I’ll see you in the next life.”

XXXXX 

In spite of how Jesse’s world had stopped, the remnants had scattered to the four corners of the tattered remains, the world kept revolving around them. Lives kept going, and Overwatch was relegated to dust. The seasons kept changing, the sun kept rising, and people moved on from that time. 

While he never wore a mask, he did try to take care not to show his face willy nilly.

There were a few exceptions to this rule. In Hanamura, searching for Genji, there was a stick up at a Raman Shop, and Jesse took care of it. If he’d been bolder, he would have reported on the incident himself as his _nom de plume,_ Joel Morricone, but he didn’t feel so bold. As it was, he had leave Hanamura and go to the old Blackwatch safe house to lay low while folks searched high and low for him.

There were obvious signs he’d just missed Genji the moment he pushed aside the sliding door. The place was cleaner than it should have been, given that it’d been shut down for years now. McCree found that the gas had been refilled, and so he turned it on, and then put on a pot of coffee after fishing out the coffee maker from storage and giving it a quick wash down.

Really, the biggest sign that it was Genji was the fact he’d almost done enough to pretend no one had passed through, that Jesse almost believed it.

The floors creaked beneath him as he sat down on the floor in the apartment turned safe house, furniture having been moved back around but whoever had been here hadn’t seen the fucking need to put the couch back downstairs. He took out his computer, and quietly wrote a news article. It didn’t mention his name, but he tried to phase it in a more covert way, that there was a certain western flair to the vigilante that had stepped in. 

By the time he finished it, the sun had drooped in the west and McCree had finished a whole pot of coffee by himself. He sighed as he stared outside, heading back down to storage to grab a futon as he messaged the article to the editor of the newspaper he was freelancing for.

He came back up with it and flopped it against the floor, leaning over to search through his plastic market bags for his instant meals to prepare.

After preparing those, he sat on the futon with his computer in front of him, his editor messaging him that his article had been accepted and would be published in the paper the next day. Unfortunately, it was combined with a photo sent in by a local resident of him from behind, face and body obscured by his red serape. He grunted as he noticed that to those who knew him, it’d be pretty obvious who it was, but it wasn’t like he had a say in what they published and how. It would only get folks to ask more questions if he disagreed with publishing the photo.

He was so wrapped up in responding to his editor, that he didn’t hear the man come behind him until there was a sword against his neck.

“How did you find this place,” A familiar metallic voice demanded coldly, unyielding metal radiating its masters fury through him.

“I didn’t find it,” McCree answered, somewhat relieved that this, at least, he could deal with. “I knew exactly where it was.”  McCree turned around carefully, pushing the sword away from his throat with his metal arm. “Hey Genji, long time no see.” He joked. 

If Genji felt anything, it was all carefully hidden behind his metal mask, and not for the first time since Genji had switched it did he wish that he could see his eyes still.

“McCree,” Genji’s voice didn’t sound surprised, and the sword dropped. “You were shot by the Widowmaker.”

“And you were beaten, tenderized and left to marinate in your own blood by your brother.” McCree reminded. “If anyone knows that it’s possible to survive the worst, its you.” Genji didn’t answer him at first. But, after a moment of standing there like a schmuck, Jesse folded his computer and put it away in his bag. “Are you gonna sit down or are you gonna stand there like that?”

“You are as lacking in tact as ever.” Genji noted, deciding to sit down on the corner of Jesse’s futon, taking up as little space as possible.

“And you’re as quiet as ever.” Jesse reminded. “I got your letter. You didn’t have to apologize, Genji.”

“I did.” Genji immediately refuted. “I…we were friends, McCree. And when I switched teams to Overwatch I stopped talking to you altogether. I was…in a bad place.”

“You think?” McCree drawled dryly and the glare that Genji gave him for the trouble was so strong that he felt it come through the mask.

“I’ve been working on it.” Genji deadpanned. “And while I can see you haven’t, I’ve come to…accept that my behavior, on a professional level and in our friendship, caused many rifts in us. You were a good friend, and I blamed you for things that I would thank Angela for later.”

McCree let Genji explain matters, and the man shifted side to side, before he spoke. “Genji, I wasn’t gonna hold your anger against you.” He said, clearly. “I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t ever gonna hate you for it. If anyone understood that anger from your position, it was me.”

“You didn’t seem very accepting of my anger back then.” Genji recalled. “I seem to remember a lot of arguments.”

“Just because I got it didn’t mean that it wouldn’t piss me off when the time was right. And frankly, to see someone basically dating Angela, and to have her forgive you but be mad at me, didn’t help matters.”

“Angela and I weren’t dating.” Genji flatly disagreed.

McCree raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief, and Genji turned his head away slightly.

“It wasn’t dating,” He rephrased. “But…well. We were close.”

“So why’d you dump me entirely,” McCree asked, curiosity biting at him. “I always wondered about why you just quit talking to me entirely after you switched over to Sojourn’s strike team.   If you and Angela weren’t dating, well. I used to think you did it because you had what you wanted and didn’t have me in the way of your crush on her.”

While there wasn’t any facial expression, Genji’s body language- the way his head craned back at the neck, the way it twisted to the side and tilted ever so slightly, green gaze focused wholly on him, read as obvious disbelief. 

“McCree, _Jesse_.” Genji looked at him and put his hands on his shoulders. “You knew I had a crush on Angela,” He reiterated. “But…you didn’t…” Genji pulled back, walking through the emptied out room. “I can’t believe you. You really didn’t notice??”

“Obviously not, and even if I did, I do kinda suffer a bit of amnesia,” He decided to point out to defend himself if only a bit, and Genji straightened again, looking at him in bewilderment, his head doing the full on tilt to the side. 

“That’s pretty important to mention, Jesse.” Genji aptly noted, and McCree shrugged.

“I get by.” He waved a hand. “But what’s got you worked up I didn’t notice?”

“I had the biggest…emotionally constipated,” Genji said, finally removing his mask to look Jesse in the eyes, “ _Thing_ , for _you_.” That made McCree stop in his tracks before he made another smartass response. “And you started dating _Gabriel._ And worse, you denied doing so to my _face_."  By the time the first statement actually registered, the second had Genji pace around in frustration as though to emphasize his words. “You! You were always _there_ , this frustratingly charming and capable person I knew back in my old life and the one who carried me over to my new one!”

“You had a crush on me?” McCree held up a hand, trying to cut his outburst somewhat in the middle of it, so that Jesse could grasp this sooner.

Genji looked to him, exasperated. “Yes. I won’t call it a crush because I’m not a teenager, McCree, but I had feelings for you. We slept together on different occasions.”

“That wasn’t unusual for me,” McCree defended himself, and though Genji glowered, he shook his head.

“I knew that. I knew that and so what we had was enough. But that stopped, not long after your and Angela’s open relationship ended.” He paused, before continuing. “Right around when your relationship with Commander Reyes changed.”

Jesse was putting together dots, and he slowly clarified, “The one I kept secret.”

“So you admit it now,” Genji muttered under his breath.

“I wasn’t just bein’ cute about the memory loss, Genji, a bullet through the soft squishy bits of you will do a number to a person.”

Genji squinted at him in irritation, but sighed. “Again, key information that you should have mentioned first.” He rubbed his temple.

“If it helps, I probably had some reason to hide it.”

“The fact it would have been some type of bad for Gabriel to date his second?” Genji asked rhetorically. “And it doesn't help.  Not really. I knew why you hid it. it didn’t mean I liked it. And I really…I just couldn’t believe that you hadn’t noticed me.” 

“You were... hard for me to read.” McCree allowed himself to say. “I never felt like I had a good beat on you. I always felt like I was…guessing, bit by bit. Sometimes I felt like you didn’t like me period. Then there was the offhanded remark about my attractiveness during Venice that I remember clearly pissing me right off.”

Genji thought on that for a minute, before he answered. He’d had to think of the incident, but his face darkened as he recalled it.

“Gabriel was openly ogling you. And he was able to do so.” Genji muttered. “But I was stuck playing look out on the computers. I could only watch from a distance.” His jealousy was suddenly clear to McCree, clear as day.

“You never said anything.” McCree murmured. “Nothing.”

“I always thought you and Angela would take priority.” Genji looked away. “I knew that you two weren’t…exclusive, but I didn’t want something like that. And then all of a sudden, and I don’t know when, you and the commander have closed the gap between you two, and there’s no room for me at all. Angela and you aren’t talking anymore, and…I had lost every chance.” He dipped his head, polite as he calmed down, collected himself. “In my anger, in how convinced I was, that…I wasn’t worthy, I wouldn’t be enough, that there wasn’t enough of me, you’d closed in on something you wanted more.”

Genji stood there and Jesse sat there, for a long time that was both forever and also only a moment.   
  
“I’m sorry, Genji.” Jesse said, and Genji waved a hand.

“I meant what I said, earlier, McCree. I’m sorry. For a lot of things. For how I acted, and how I didn’t act.” His hands balled up into fists, and then he relaxed. “But I can’t change that now.” He looked away, and put his mask back on. “I was here for the anniversary of my…assassination. My brother was here.”

“Did you finally return the favor?” Jesse asked, curious.

The man was impassive for a moment. “No.” He shook his head. “I have forgiven him.”

McCree’s eyebrows went as high as they could on his face in disbelief “Who are you, and what have you done with Genji?” Jesse asked, expression agape with that revelation.

“It was…tempting.” Genji murmured, finally sitting down again. “We fought. I had my sword at his throat. I had the opportunity. He had…incensed me during the fight. But when I had him at my mercy, I could feel…how much he wanted to die like this. How he felt like it would be his…honorable defeat. But I hadn’t gone there to kill him. And so…I told him I wouldn’t give him what he wanted, and I revealed to him that he hadn’t killed me.”

Jesse sat there patiently, as Genji explained what had happened. “I had been angry, for so many years at him. But…at the end of the day, I still, hope that somewhere in that…bitter person he’s become. That he’s my brother, and a better man than he’s allowed himself to be.”

Jesse waited for Genji for a few moments, before asking. “How’d he take the reveal. I’m assuming… he saw what it was he did.”

“He asked what I’d become.” Genji snorted, humorously. “Not how I survived his injuries. Convenient for him to write off his actions and focus on…the form.”

“You know, Genji, I always thought the get up was real cool looking. It fit right in with the gang.” He said, while Genji just leveled him with a even green glowing stare.

“Then he tried to kill me, but he ultimately disengaged.” Genji looked up toward the ceiling. “It was a waste of all of our times, maybe. Or maybe it’ll put him on a better path." 

“So…now what, for you?”

“Now, I go back to Nepal.” Genji looked towards Jesse. “I’ve…come to accept things about myself, and I’ve come to learn that I need to better myself. Times are changing, and I want to be ready when the time comes.”

“Nepal?” Jesse raised an eyebrow. Genji nodded after a moment.

“I began studying under an omnic monk, known as Zenyatta.” Genji explained. “I don’t know… how well you two would get along. You’ve always had a more…unique view of things.”

Jesse shrugged at the polite way of saying he could be a piece of work. “Can’t disagree with you there.”

“I’m going back to study more with him.” Genji tilted his head. “It’s my home now.”

“Home, huh?” Jesse murmured, looking around the abandoned and cleaned out safe house, and wondering where his was anymore.

Genji stood. “I know you wanted me to come tonight.” Genji’s voice was soft. “I can see it on your face. You’re looking for something that’s…gone, and has been gone. Don’t get stuck in the past, McCree.” He urged. “I’d offer you to come with me…but I get the feeling you’d just turn me down.”

“I’ve never been too fond of the cold.” McCree agreed, sighing. “And maybe I am. But…well. Times are changing, and there are answers I’m still looking for." 

He couldn’t see it behind the mask, but he was certain Genji stared at him with some pity.

“You loved him, didn’t you.”

The words sat there, and bile burnt the back of his throat out of nowhere, bile he swallowed down.

It wasn’t a question, and McCree couldn’t find the fire in him to point out that Genji had felt the same for Jesse himself. Instead, he sat there on the futon as the pink light of the slowly dawning day poured in from a window placed behind them, and it poured over Genji, leaving McCree in the shadows.

“And if I did?” Jesse asked, quiet. “He’s gone.”

Genji walked around the futon, and bent over, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Then I hope you may move on, as soon as you’re able.”

Before McCree realized he’d been pickpocketed, Genji deftly pulled out McCree’s phone from its pocket, and opened it. “Admittedly, reception can be spotty, but the temple itself…has some places I would be able to get your information. And snail mail always reaches us…eventually.”

“Why the fuck would robots and cyborgs, who theoretically could have wifi literally wired into them, need snail mail?"

“Because I don't have wifi wired into me.” Genji said, nonchalant as he brushed him off. He took a few minutes to input some information, and handed the phone back to him. “I wish you…luck, McCree. I do hope you find whatever it is you’re searching for.” 

Genji rubbed his shoulder with more fondness than he ever had done before, and Jesse didn’t ask, but felt that…in spite of Genji’s admissions, in spite of Genji taking those steps away from him…there was something there. Neither of them took that step, knowing that…it wasn’t what either of them needed, in that time. 

Instead, Genji bowed his head as goodbye, and walked out the door, disappearing into the early hours of sunrise. 

XXXXX

Things turned from a small simmer to a quiet roil within weeks. 

Jesse McCree saw a name in the news and he felt something odd course through him as he read through the articles over the next couple weeks.

Soldier: 76 was a name that popped up again, and again, and again.

He knew-from the second he saw the outline of the man in the news- exactly who lay beneath the mask.

He didn’t want to believe it, and yet like a moth drawn to the flame and the fish to the alluring light of the angler or the glint of the fisherman’s hook, he began his steady trail after him.

76 stayed steps ahead of him, but it didn’t deter Jesse in the slightest.

The moral of the tortoise and the hare was not that the slow could beat the fast who were lazy, but rather a metaphor for how humanities stamina and ability to walk after prey for large distances would do far better in the end than chasing with all one’s might.

He thought he lost the trail in Dorado, Mexico.

He thought that, and that brought him to a bar in Castillo, a village just outside of town. He sat at the bar, and wondered what his next option was.

From behind him, woman in purple approached him with an easy smile and overly affectionate terms at the bar, putting a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t take kindly, shrugging her off aggressively and turning to her, letting the glint of his gun do the talking for him. Instead of taking offense, she raised her hands and chuckled.

“Easy, cowboy. I’m not here to hurt you.” She said in English, glancing him over. “What the hell are you _wearing_?”

“I could ask the same of you,” McCree drawled lowly as he gave her a once over, not letting his guard down even though she held her hands up, empty, and her body language read relaxed. “Then why are you bothering me, stranger?”

The woman gave him a slightly more certain smirk, dropping her hands as she sat next to him. “Well, there have been a few other strangers walking in and out of this place. Last time someone did, bodies were left behind.” She sighed, overdramatic, clearly not all that torn up about them. “Of course, I knew who they were. Which is why I know they’re gone now, and they found whatever it was they needed before heading overseas.”

McCree tensed, hearing about a pair of people.

She held up the paper, and laid it down. She bemusedly fingered through the pages, glossing a finger over a title that read, ¿ _Quién es Sombra?_ She stared for only a moment before she turned the page again, pulling up a single image of a black and blue mask glowing in the dark behind the red one. “Ah, there we are. Our other friends.”

He’d gotten his hopes up only to have them be snuffed out so quickly. His shoulders, and the woman noticed, gaze flickering over and glancing at him up and down.

It wasn’t because he didn’t recognize who was under the guise. Who would be travelling with 76. But…he was disappointed regardless.

“Shrike, quite the interesting name.” The woman said after watching him for a moment longer. “A bird that likes to impale lizards and snakes and leave them to die. Wonder who got on her bad side.”

McCree didn’t react, and she huffed, apparently disappointed in his lack of response.   
  
“Come on now, cowboy. I’ve been trying to put together a picture of you for so long, but all my attempts fail.” She gestured through the papers. “There’s nothing like you, and I know in general who you’d have to be to be chasing after 76 like you’ve been doing.”

“You’ve been following me.” McCree muttered, anger held back just enough to give the woman a moment's pause. She recollected, and rephrased. 

“Look, I’ve been following 76, and 76 has been here and has since left with his Shrike. Then, another American comes trotting through, one looking for 76, whose records all show he’s been on that same tail…but there’s no records of you.” She gestured vaguely. “I know who you should be, but nothing comes up. It’s left me curious. And…perhaps we can help each other while we’re at it. I can appreciate another person so far removed from the grid that I have a bit of a snag getting the information I want.”

McCree let her sit there, obviously growing a bit frustrated with him. Then he bit. “Where’d they go?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me why I can’t find your records in Overwatch.”

“You’re looking in the wrong area.” McCree answered. “Where are they?”  
  
“Cairo.” She finished. “Now where’s the _right_ area?”

 McCree downed his drink, and stood up, purpose once again found, direction once again focused.

“Check the death reports. You gotta be a vulture, as you've gone looking for one.”

She chuckled, nodding. “And you’re a shadow, sticking to other shadows. Pleasure doing business with you, _vulture_.”

XXXXX 

“Yeah, I’ll come see you Fareeha, if you’re available.” McCree murmured over his phone, walking through the medina of Cairo and brushing past faces and people he didn’t know and didn’t want to look at. There were lots of forgotten chases of omnics lying around, and one that clung to life, sitting next to an abandoned body. Cairo’s solution to the continued problem of the god AI sitting around was particularly brutal.

They would remove the omnics AI’s completely. He’d been in Europe when he’d seen a familiar AI chip around the black market, and had bought Echo’s AI. It felt heavy in his pocket, but he knew it’d have to wait just a bit longer.

Sickeningly, this was considered the humane solution. To leave their bodies empty, their minds trapped, unseeing, unknowing for years. That was if they weren’t destroyed outright either purposefully on by accident. The tiny chips were rather fragile.

He rubbed the scar on his face, that lay beneath the eye patch, and knew in his core that humans and omnics weren’t that different in that regard.

McCree eventually found what he was looking for. Wanted posters, featuring Soldier: 76 and Shrike. Ahead of him by about 20 feet, Soldier: 76 stared at the Shrike poster intently.

He hummed as Fareeha called his name, trying to get his attention. “Sorry, Fairy. I’ll have to call you back.” He murmured. “Something’s come up, and it needs my full attention.”

“Be careful, Jesse.” She stressed. “I can’t tell you details, but…there’s been serious activity around here.” 

“Talon’s making moves,” Jesse agreed without forcing her to speak plainly about her meaning. “I saw on the news a bit ago, about the shooter in King’s Row. Bout time for me to return the favor to the bitch.”

“I’m serious, Jesse.” She pleaded, voice firm but intent clear. “I’ve buried you once, I don’t want to do it again.”

“You’ll be pleased to hear, then, that I’m not here for Talon.” Jesse allowed as he quietly tailed Soldier: 76, watching him get flanked by a blue coated Shrike. Neither of them said a word, but their destination was apparent- Hakim’s compound. He grimaced. “At least…it’s not my primary goal.”

“Jesse,” Fareeha deadpanned, clearly disapproving, sounding altogether too much like her mother.

“I hear you.” He muttered. “I promise Fairy, I’ll call you back.” He clipped his comm shut, and headed forward once more, blending into the crowd as Solder: 76 and Shrike moved with absolute purpose. 

The two of them approached the compound while Jesse hung back, watching how they worked. Shrike split off after giving Soldier: 76 some sort of message Jesse couldn’t quite make out.

The woman stalked off, her gun clearly some kind of fancy new weapon that McCree only half remembered as one of Torbjörn’s half-baked weapon designs that Angela hated for turning her tech into a new weapon.

Soldier: 76 was left standing on the other side of the great door. Pacing, really. He had been told to wait, and McCree chuckled. Out of nowhere, his mark perked up. McCree stepped back, suddenly worried that perhaps he’d been detected…but instead, the white haired old grizzly man surprised him by deciding to scale the twenty-foot barrier like some kinda bat outta hell. Gunfire opened up on the other side, and McCree cursed as he rushed forward himself.

He wasn’t half as able to do that like so, but that was one of the benefits of having a metal arm now, he supposed as he dug the metal digits into the stone and began the brutal climb up. 

The scene that greeted his eyes as he finished scaling the wall, and had come to the edge to survey the scene sent shocks down to his core. 76 had been hit, and was now in a fist fight with a man dressed in all black. It only took a moment to register, and once it did it took all the breath out of McCree and left him winded.

Reaper.

The fight continued in spite of how McCree desperately wished for a minute, in spite of the cold thing that suddenly stabbed at his innards he refused to put a name to.

He pulled himself together forcefully as Shrike’s mask was removed, as she took aim down the sights of her new gun and Ana revealed herself in her entirety, putting pressure on Reaper and shooting Jack, letting him get back in the fight.

He was forced into action as he watched from his snipers perch- the one he’d never wanted but had always found himself in- as Reaper closed the distance on Ana and reformed, he took aim, head pounding and threatening to make him pass out, but he held that focus and fired Reaper’s gun out of his hand. 

All eyes below- the three old soldiers on the battlefield- suddenly turned and looked upwards, where the vulture loomed in his perch, watching and circling the dead below. He’d taken his chances, and now the Reaper rushed at him. He braced for impact, but suddenly Reaper disappeared altogether, sending another cold stab through his middle. Knowing and hating that he knew, McCree turned around and flash banged Reaper the moment he appeared behind him.

He hesitated, knowing the right thing to do, the thing that he should have done would be to fill the man’s ass with lead. But he didn’t fan the hammer.

No. And he hated himself for it as all Reaper did was give a faint laugh, knowing McCree’s weakness and knowing it all too well.

“Now isn’t this funny.” Reaper rasped as the two of them started to duke it out, trading blow for blow, dodging each other and rolling with the blows that couldn’t be avoided. “Hakim knew that there would be one bird trying to sabotage operations…had been planning on drawing them out. It turned out to be Ana, one ghost I hadn’t expected…and then there’s _him_ , but I knew he’d come. But you? Old soldiers are hard to kill, but you’re something else, aren’t you?”

Jesse recognized Reaper, of course he did. But he didn’t want to. Not in how he moved. Not in how he spoke. Not in his guns or the way he and Jesse didn’t feel like they were fighting, but sparring. Not in how Reaper gave way and let Jesse use him as a landing cushion. 

They landed, Jesse on top. He didn’t want to recognize his face, but he pulled off that mask in a flit of rage, of angry denial and a desperate need in his gut to find answers. But he hadn’t wanted to know, not really.  

He’d known the truth the whole time, from the moment he saw his form in the distance from his spot on the roof, from back when he put two and two together and saw news of a shrike in blue and a relentless soldier-like vigilante chasing down ghosts in the United States.

Jesse wasn’t really sure when he had started crying but there were angry hot tears on his face as it contorted as he sees all of what Reaper was. All that _he_ had become.

“What the hell happened to you, Gabe?” He asked, voice straining.

 _Who_ exactly it was that his Gabriel had become now.

"They did this to me, Jesse." Gabriel's voice was _just_ off, scarred lips moving over long fangs. Red eyes bore into him, threatened to gore him like bullhorns chasing down a running man. Jesse sat there in angry, horrified shock, something solidifying in his gut and settling in it heavily. His fists balled up and his jaw clenched tight, his teeth aching and reminding him they were breakable bones.

He knew, instinctively, that Gabe meant Jack and Ana had done this.

"They left me to become this _thing_." Gabriel's expression belied his disgust with himself, his hands gesturing to his scarred and burnt and blackened face with the smoke eking out from every crevice, from his hood and from his lips. "They left you to die. _They_ left me to suffer."

Jesse's body did what his mind was too stricken to think of.

He punched Gabe.

"You did this!" He argued back hotly, grieving thoughts finally catching up with his punch, the recoil of the fist against skin forcing him back to the present moment. "You were the one working with Moira, _you're_ the one who's working with Talon," He grabbed Gabriel by his hoodie and shook him, as though that would put sense back into his skull.

"Ingrate." Gabriel hissed at him as the motion stopped, before he grabbed Jesse by the wrists and flipped their positions. "I ordered you to get out of there." He leaned in. "Never a good student, you never liked listening to those who _knew_ better." A finger trailed down his cheek in the sick facsimile of affection.

His metal hand did have some uses and Gabriel had been stupid to let his wrist go to stroke his cheek. He grabbed Gabe's offending hand by the wrist and rolled them back over, pinning him down more purposefully this time.

"Oh yeah? Did you know? Back then? Did you _know_ what they'd done to Amélie?" He shouted, interrogated, squeezing Gabriel's wrist with all the force in his robotic arm, far past what would break a human’s wrist as he bore down on him.

"No," Gabriel drawled out his response, red eyes squinting at him, lip curled up. "I wasn't involved in Widowmaker's creation." 

"Then why work for them now." Jesse leaned down, searching those eyes for something. _Anything_.

Please, Gabriel, he thought to himself. Tell Jesse that his eyes deceived him. Prove them all wrong.

"Why take _his_ side?" Gabriel growled, accusing him instead of doing anything Jesse wanted.

"His side?" That confused Jesse for a moment, eyebrows screwing up, neck scrunching back and head tilting to the side slightly as he worked through Gabe's evasive response.

"I had expected it of _her_ , but you were _mine_." Gabriel explained in a low voice, gaze flitting over to where Ana was assisting Jack midway through his sentence.

 It clicked, and Jesse let out a halfhearted laugh.

"I ain’t anyone's." Jesse explained, tired. "This isn’t some stupid argument over toppings on pizza where you get to accuse me of taking sides. It ain't even debating whether or not Venice was right anymore." He paused to lick his lips. He wanted a cigar real bad right about now, his fingers itching as he tried to find words.

"I'm against Talon." He settled with, the words as heavy as any of the other revelations today on his lips. "I jus' never thought that would mean I'd be facing you like this. Never thought you'd change so much. Look at yourself, Gabe- not physically." He quickly amended. "You're a terrorist. Blaming everyone...but yourself."

"You _abandoned_ me- you never came back." Gabriel hissed, grasping for straws, expression growing wild as Jesse pinned the truth on his shoulders.

"No I _didn't,_ Gabe." Jesse felt that anger growing in his gut again, but forced it down. "I was shot by _your_ damn _coworker_ and damn near  _killed._ "

"I didn't _know_." Gabe tried to justify, but Jesse wouldn’t take that.

"You can’t blame me for it, and then say you didn’t _know._ ” He pointed out. “And Gabe, you _musta_ learned about it eventually."

Silence.

Gabe's whole body wisped beneath Jesse. "You did, at some point." Jesse continued, leaning forward. He tangled their fingers together. "You learned exactly who shot me, who you thought _killed_ me. And you're still with them now." 

Gabe's face was priceless- expression floundering, eyes wide, jaw wide.

"You know, you've changed, Gabe." He murmured, face bowing forward so his hair prevented on-looking eyes from reading his lips as he as he whispered, "Still my Gabi, but you don't even realize how bad you've become. S' this what being alone has done to you?" His thumb traced Gabe's chin, more genuinely affectionate. 

"I don't think Jack and Ana did this to you." He chided, voice gentle.

Gabriel still gaped at him, his anger forgotten, something more like panicked confusion taking its place. "They did." He said, his conviction faltering in the face of Jesse’s gentle words. "They did, and, I'll make them pay for what happened to you, to _us_."

Jesse breathed out his frustration through his nose, leaned in, and kissed Gabriel.

The kiss was slow, surprisingly needy on Gabriel's behalf. Jesse kept his calm, and pulled away after a moment. "Gabriel," he whispered, sincere, making a quiet plea to reason, "Please, I…I love you.” He begged, almost childishly, for him to see sense through those words. “Talon happened to us. You happened to us. Widowmaker happened to me. You can't escape that, you…you have to know that, don’t you?"

"No," Gabriel argued with him, defensive in spite of Jesse’s earnest admission throwing him off. "No, _I'm_ Talon, this is- this is all Overwatch's fault." He growled, escaping as smoke from beneath Jesse. "And if you're not with me, you're _against_ me."

Jesse's expression turned sad as Gabriel smoked away. "Tell Widowmaker she missed for me." He taunted, grief bubbling back up from inside, and that familiar hollow ache in his chest where Gabriel had left a hole in his life felt it crash against its sides like a tidal wave, rocking any foundations McCree had laid since he’d found himself at Gabriel’s grave and threatening to wash them all away.

Gabriel didn’t answer; his mask left forgotten as he fled in a haze of indignant anger and burnt betrayal that left McCree breathing in black smoke that smelled of fire and forced him to hold back tears- of grief or from irritation of the smoke, he couldn’t tell you. 

Even if he knew the answer himself, he wouldn’t admit it aloud.

He sat there for a moment, before he slid all the way to the earth, legs splayed in a W position, where Gabriel vanished beneath him. Jesse picked the mask up off the floor, and stared down at it like it could give him answers.

"McCree?" Ana sounded shocked, her and Jack finally approaching as Gabriel vanished, Jack leaning heavily on the shorter woman. "Is that _you_?"

Jesse closed his eyes, breathed in, and out, and took that one more moment for himself, before he pocketed the mask. 

"In the flesh." He turned and grinned affirmatively with cheer he didn't feel, scars from glass shards and hot plastic giving his face new life, a literal dead eye covered up by a new patch. “Though I could ask the same to any of y’all. We should go... catch up somewhere more... _private_. I think we have a lot to chat about."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> expect the final part in late june or early july. if it comes any sooner than that....well. Go me? Hope yall enjoyed this!!


	4. We Are All Just Prisoners Here, Of Our Own Device

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the good news is, the ending is basically done. bad news is that this chapter is not the ending, that'll come either on sunday or monday, depending on how much i get done tonight/tomorrow b4 the new sims 4 pack comes out. I was planning on releasing it altogether on sunday but i realized i was at almost 14k with a considerable amount of writing to do.
> 
> not to mention that editing 20k ? awful. horrible. so take this 10k update and the happy ish ending spot its got.
> 
> thank you to everyone readin this! my friends on twitter are lovely and i hope they're happier with me w/ this spot than the last chapter. my handle is @harmicist and im always happy 2 chat.
> 
> if this reminds you of bastet, thats intentional, i took some of the wording and scenarios in the short story and redid it to include the changed timeline.

Ana and Jack went looking around the compound first, needing to rifle through their belongings, get any clues.  They were all left in shock about a few different things. McCree hated the quiet wall between them now, but he waited impassively, toeing a downed man to make sure he was really dead. 

“I got them all,” Jack said, voice stilted from his place on the sandy floor of the courtyard, obviously in a mood.  Ana huffed her disapproval, clearly lost in her own thoughts as they all remained out in the open of Hakim’s palatial courtyard. 

One man groaned from McCree’s feet, and Ana answered it with a sleep dart to the neck while Jesse took the faster solution of a bullet to the back of the head before Jack could react.  Ana gave him a disapproving look, but the sheer number of bodies in the palace courtyard belied her sentiment. 

“You missed this one, Morrison.”  Jesse joked from above the body, and Jack grumbled. 

“Glad to see you haven’t  _ changed _ , McCree.”  Jack gave one of his blasé, good guy shrugs, clearly not wanting to take Jesse’s attitude. 

It was the same over the shoulder shrug that was on one of those damned magazines McCree had spent countless hours pouring over in the interim, about the shadow of Overwatch, the same shrug that Gabriel had done when he’d rolled his eyes in Venice about that  _ famous McCree attitude. _

“I’ll try to adjust that for you.  Wouldn’t wanna cause any problems.”  Jesse flatly echoed his old self, his irritation just as real now as it had been back then.

Ana paced at a distance, and put up her mask, looking around before she dropped it again, looking rather peeved as she pocketed the broken thing.  “Any sign of where he went?” She asked Jack, and the man touched his own visor, taking a few moments to glance around. 

McCree didn’t need to have the knowledge he did about their long history with the unnamed man in question to guess who they were looking for.

“Not a trace.”  Jack didn’t sound too upset about that as he shifted his weight back some.  “McCree? You got any ideas?” McCree raised an eyebrow to question that, and Jack pierced him with a scowl Jesse  _ felt, _ from behind his visor.  “You and him seemed pretty close right about then.”  He practically painted a target on McCree’s chest, and McCree’s teeth gnashed so hard together that his jaw threatened him with a migraine.  

“No, no clues where he went.”  McCree turned his stare towards the bright blue sky and thought of the southwest, trying to keep his temper, his grief in check.  “Didn’t quite have enough time to stick him with a tracker either, sorry,  _ boss _ .” 

He and Jack had always disagreed on a few things, especially tactics.  How funny, to see Jack using them now, acting all too like the squad that he’d condemned when its name tarnished his own.

How utterly fuckin’ ironic to watch him mirror the man Gabriel had once been.  If McCree didn’t think he needed him, he would have strangled Jack Morrison then and there.

“I’m  _ not _ your boss.”  Jack was clipped, obviously having picked up what Jesse was putting down, turning his chin down in disapproval as he took a threatening step forward towards Jesse.

“Jack…your injury looks fairly bad.”  Ana put a hand to stop the older man from going to get more answers out of Jesse.  McCree nodded sagely, wishing not for the first time he had a smoke, looking to where Reaper’s shotgun took a chunk out of Jack’s back, tearing the leather jacket up along with the flesh beneath it.  However, pink flesh was growing in at the edges. 

The center of the wound, though, made McCree’s face scrunch up.  The stuff in the middle was turning a dark necrotic black. Unbidden, the mental image of a distasteful woman hit him hard in the developing migraine.

Moira O’Deorain.   _ Course she was in on this, _ McCree thought darkly, remembering how much he hated that damned scientist, mentally underscoring her name for an extra special punishment for her crimes.

“I’ll be fine.”  Jack grunted, partly trying to make her feel better, partly speaking the truth of the matter.  “It just takes us some time.”

Jesse and Ana both irked their heads at the ‘us’ there.  They made eye contact, and knew that Jack was taking the revelation of Gabriel’s survival a bit  _ too _ easily.  Neither of them wanted to ask him, but both were asking themselves the same question: did Jack already know?  It was…likely at least. 

“McCree. You’ve been labeled KIA for years, went completely off all our radars.  Gabe’s included. He went out there personally, searched every goddamned nook and cranny of Poland for where your ass ended up.  There wasn’t a trace of you.” Jack barreled through their shared concern, and Ana sighed, rubbing her forehead. 

“I needed time to  _ heal _ , Morrison.  Not all of us are genetically enhanced super soldiers, and bullets through the head are typically gonna do a number on a person.”  McCree sharply reminded, defensive.

“Yeah, a 10-54.”  Jack snorted. Jesse answered that with an aborted chuckle of his own, while Ana sucked in a breath. 

_ Possible dead body. _

“Which just begs the question, how’d  _ you _ survive?”

“If I knew, Morrison, trust me, I’d have patented the methodology, made a killin’ off it already.”  Jesse crossed his arms, before angrily lifting off his eye patch, shutting them both up with a good look at the hole in his head.

“Regardless, while I’d hate to interrupt this  _ interrogation _ ,” Jesse sarcastically broke the new quiet as he tilted his head; listening for something he knew was coming, deep in his bones.  “I get the feeling that we’re about to have company.”

Police sirens suddenly became audible, quiet in the distance as they approached the palatial courtyard just teeming with bodies. Jesse grumbled, his instincts a bit too good at knowing when the cops would come, even now.  

Ana bit her lip, nodding.  “We should get going. Sounds like someone’s noticed.”

“Oh, wonder which part tipped them off, the gunfight or the break in via climbing over the goddamned front door.”

“Lead the way, Ana.”  Jack ignored Jesse with a nod of his head towards the woman, steadying himself and putting his gun over his shoulder.

XXXXX

Getting away from the scene of the ‘crime’ was a debacle and a half, but they managed it.  Ana did her job well, and McCree knew that she was prolly counting every blessing, including the fact the city’s shitty fuckin’ infrastructure made flushing them out about as easy as doing pest control in a hoarders house.

Neither Jesse nor Ana were unused to the sun beating down overhead.  Years McCree had spent in the desert gave him a serious advantage, while Ana had grown up and had begun her career in the army here. 

Jack, though, was looking seriously worse for wear, and he sounded like it too. It was atypical, and that made McCree wary, and Ana worry, though neither of them voiced their concerns.

This kind of thing just wasn’t something Jack should have ever struggled with.  His genetic enhancements- the same shit that made Gabriel able to ghost away and should have healed him by now- was supposed to allow him to be an all-terrain type of man, and he always had been just that.

But now even his wound wasn’t healing, if the blood seeping out of the shirt wrapped around his middle was anything to go by.

“I  _ told _ you Jack, you should be taking better care of yourself.” Ana chided as they crouched in the shadows, waiting for cars to pass by before they made their way to the next patch of crisscrossing streets and cover. 

“You’re sounding like Angela again.”  Jack huffed, voice strained. McCree snorted, having to give the old man that.  Ana turned to glare at them both, but they flattened behind a wall in a little group regardless of any petty irritation.  Police cars passed them by yet again, sirens still flashing their bright colors. “Think they’re looking for us?” Jack wiped the sweat from his brow as he asked.

“Almost certainly.”  Ana confirmed without thinking at all while Jesse gave Jack a disbelieving look at asking such a dumb question.  Jack shifted uneasily with that knowledge, and Ana sought to soothe it. “But there’s plenty of crime here. Enough to keep them busy- and let us get out of here.” 

“Reminds me of Prague.”  He muttered, leaning against a pillar to rest a moment as they bided time, waiting for a group of civilians to pass.  Second they did, McCree strolled forward, checking both lanes of incoming foot traffic to make sure there weren’t any eyes that could catch them.

McCree whistled as he ushered them out of their hiding spots, able to more freely move given his now lesser known face. “If this is anything like Prague, McCree will have to carry you this time- I refuse to.” She told him, joking with humor that was absent from her face.  Ana moved, while Jack stayed behind. She spared him another glance after checking the roads again, worried. “Come on Jack, keep up.” 

Ana and Jesse made it to the next clump of shadows.  “I’m not surprised. Prague was  _ also _ your fault.  Why you ever thought Reinhardt could be stealthy is beyond me.”  Ana told him off, half teasing, half irritated. Something told Jesse that her plan had been completely thrown asunder by what Jack did in response to Gabe’s appearance.

McCree and Ana waited a beat for Jack to defend himself, Jesse snickering a second at the mention of the big oaf on one of their old adventures.  When Jack didn’t, they turned around together, Ana murmuring, “ _ Not now,” _ before rushing over to him, while Jesse stared at the scene in a bit of open shock.

Jack lay on the pavestones in the open, collapsed on the ground.  Reaper’s mask felt heavy in McCree’s pocket, reminding him that he never breathed a word about who’s technology had done that, never said a word before Venice about the person who’d joined their ranks and had turned out to be every bit the wolf among them McCree had always thought she was.  He didn’t say any of that, though when he finally moved towards the fallen man to help Ana any way he could. 

He couldn’t change the past, but he could help the present.

“Jack, wake up,” She hissed, pulling on his shoulders to shake him lightly. Ana cursed when there was no response, and McCree just knelt down on the other side of him.

“C’mon Ana.”  He murmured, grabbing Jack’s other arm.  “We need to get out of here.”

Ana scrutinized him for a long second, before she closed her eyes and agreed, taking the arm and wrapping it around her shoulder while McCree mirrored her, and lifted the man off the ground. 

They carried the weight of their bad decisions and their missing loved one without another word between them.

XXXXX

Ana and Jack’s safe house was quite literally a tomb, and McCree gave Ana the hardest scowl he could manage with one eye and a patch blocking his ability to stare her down from over his nose.  

“The symbolism here’s a bit on the nose, don’t you think, Ana?”  He asked, grunting as they carried Jack down into the tomb. 

“Help me set him up on a cot.” She requested, not wanting to argue with him on the subject, unable to look up at him. A concerned hand brushed over Jack’s forehead, clearly feeling for a fever while McCree moved back in to maneuver him into place.

They got Jack sprawled across the too-small bed, and they made a face at his injuries, before Ana and Jesse looked towards each other and finally took it all in.

Jesse’s scarred face and missing arm.  Ana’s burns and scars across her middle.  Jesse’s missing eye, Ana’s cybernetic enhancements fogged over from heat damage.

Between them, Jack had a long slash across his face that was long scarred over and a new injury that needed tending, one that looked fairly nasty and one that should have been well on its way to healed already, but wasn’t.

One that one of them would have to fix.

“I’m not good at field dressing.”  Ana copped out, and McCree raised an eyebrow. 

“And you think I am?”  He questioned.

Ana pursed her lips.  “I think you’re capable of doing the job.”  She evaded saying one of them was better than the other.  “And there are many things we should do.” She held out her meager supplies, raided from some US military base- maybe even from Watchpoint: Grand Mesa. 

“The last time you said that I got my damn eye shot out.”  He muttered, but he grumbled as he took off his gloves to clean his hands with the materials she provided.  She visibly flinched at the reminder, and McCree realized that while he’d gotten used to making off color humor about the grim reality of his accident, she’d only just learned he’d survived at all.

He rubbed his neck and took up the needle and dressings and got to stitching up Morrison’s back.  “If it looks bad, you’re taking blame.” He said, trying to lighten up the air he’d darkened which such a heavy accusation.

XXXXX

Ana asked him for some time to think about...everything, while Jack rested, and Jesse took the time to head out and call Fareeha back, sitting on the edge of the cliff, smoking a cigarette. It wasn’t just her that needed a break from their situation- Jesse was feeling equally torn up inside about it.

“Glad to hear you’re alright Jesse,” Fareeha murmured, sitting in the common room of her base. “Things have been…busy in Cairo today.  What happened, exactly?”

“It’s... a complicated situation, Fareeha,” Jesse blew out smoke, leaning back, hand flat and rubbing against the sand in some sort of attempt to ground himself.  “And frankly, you might not like all the details.”

“Did you have anything to do with  _ why _ the cops were going haywire in the market?”  She asked, voice tellingly edging towards exasperation with him and his habit of getting himself into senseless trouble with the law.

Jesse grimaced at how quickly she’d found him out, and he gave a guilty smile into the receiver before answering her. “Mmm, well.  Maybe I did, but only as a bystander,  _ really _ ,” He sheepishly admitted, tapping a finger on his cigarette thoughtfully.  “I did get roped into the escape, though. But again, I didn’t go lookin’ for trouble with the law.  The folks I was lookin for were. And I happened to find them.”

“So…Soldier: 76…and Shrike.”   Fareeha carefully enunciated both their names, elongating them more than was necessary.  An unnamed heavy emotion like guilt sat in his stomach, weighing him down as she let him stew in it.  “I’m assuming you’re with them now?”

“How mad would you be at me if I said yes?” Jesse questioned as he looked back towards the quarters Jack slept in, Ana guarding his body, only to have Fareeha sigh at him. 

“I wouldn’t be mad at you, Jesse.”  She murmured, taking a second, her hand brushing against the receiver and causing some static.  “I wouldn’t even be surprised.” She was quiet. “Just…don’t hold it against me in return, alright?”

“How long have you known?”  Jesse asked, wincing at her resigned tone, his brow furrowing at her guilty plea.  Her mother’s ‘death’ had taken a real toll on Fareeha, and to find out she was alive…well.  He couldn’t imagine what she was going through- what she had been going through, when he was still reeling back from Gabriel’s reveal, and they’d been friends, lovers, and not family.

“She sent me a letter a few months back.”  Fareeha murmured.

Jesse thought to the tired looking, worried woman perched in the tomb, watching over Jack.  The one who’d been fighting Reaper alongside him, and who Jesse knew loved her daughter more than her own life.  “Oh?” 

“I didn’t reply.”  Fareeha stated flatly. 

“Ouch.”  He sympathized with both sides, but he didn’t want to get in the middle of it  “She doesn’t know I’m out here talking to you.” He told Fareeha. “She was…shocked to see me.”

Fareeha gave a humorless laugh.  “Does she even have the right to be?” 

“Maybe not,” He agreed with her, uneasy.  “However, uhm. On a different note, about what happened, well, a fight broke out with Hakim’s lackeys, Talon, and now Jack’s hurt.  But… there was…  _ one _ more ghost there.”  McCree quietly explained, sitting up fully, and turning Reaper’s mask over in one hand.

“Who is it now?” Fareeha asked, seeming rather fed up with the whole debacle of the dead getting up and walking.  “Has Gérard risen from the dead to come fight too? Get revenge for his wife?”

At least he didn’t flinch too hard at that, and at least his heart didn’t ache any worse at the reminder of all those people Gabriel had betrayed.  “This ghost wasn’t on our side, Fairy.” McCree stared into the mask as he quietly, solemnly checked her righteous anger with sorrow, slowly rubbing his fingers against the bone white facade. “They’re on Talon’s.”  That made her go silent, and he knew instinctively that she didn’t want to ask who- didn’t dare say anyone’s name. In fact, she had gone so quiet that Jesse knew she was holding her breath, waiting for the ball to drop.

“Who are they…now.”  She asked instead, voice hesitant but brave enough to pose a question McCree wouldn’t have been able to ask had he been in her position.

“The Reaper.”  Jesse hated how his lips curled the name as he said it in disgust, able to envision Gabriel’s ripped up face, the way his teeth turned unnatural, where skin met smoke and where smoke met scars, his red eyes boring holes through Jesse’s soul the moment he closed his eyes.  

She took a sharp breath in.  The terrorist had been around far longer than 6 years since Gabriel’s death, a fact that made Jesse particularly ill to think on too long. 

“Who is he?”  She said this question stronger, bracing herself, hardening her tone. 

He shifted on the sand and rocks and debated on if he should really tell her.

“Jesse,” She pressed him, courage growing.  She’d never been one to run from harsh truths.  “I should know- you wouldn’t have mentioned it at all if you didn’t think so.  Please. Everyone’s kept me in the dark, but I’m not a child who needs protecting anymore.  I am a protector now too- I’m a grown woman, I can handle this.”

Jesse breathed out. “I…I don’t doubt you, Fairy.   But I’m the one who’s struggling to say it. Not because of you...but because of who it is I saw.”  He closed his eyes as he prepared himself to say the words aloud. “He’s…it’s Gabriel.” He was soft as he said the name, and the silence on the other end made him wonder if she’d heard him.  “Fareeha?”

“No.”  Her voice was choked up, incredibly so.  “It couldn’t be… He…”

“I know.”  Jesse agreed.  “I…I was the same.  I only found out today.”

“Did you actually see his face?”  She demanded more, sounding like she wanted to refuse to believe his statement, searching for any alternatives, and McCree’s gut quivered in sympathy, knowing if there were any other answers he would have already found them and wouldn’t have been here, telling her this now. 

“I ripped his mask off.  I saw his face.” He explained, soft, aching for her.  “It was him, Fareeha. I knew even before I saw it, but…  I promise you, it was him. Gabriel’s the Reaper…and…he’s with Talon.  I don’t wanna believe it either. But I know what I saw.”

Fareeha choked up as she tried to comprehend that horrible truth, and McCree took a long drag off his cigarette.   

He turned back towards the crypt they’d hidden themselves in, and he saw Ana watching him like the shrike she claimed to be, and she was staring at him like he was- worryingly- a lizard.  Here he was, talking to the one person she’d undoubtedly want to speak to most, but he knew she wouldn't force such a thing on her daughter when she’d already forced so much onto her young shoulders.

“Hey, Fairy.”  He murmured, quieter as he used the sand to stamp out the remnants of his cigarette.  “I reckon it’s about time for me to head back inside. You won’t fuckin’ believe the irony of where we’re at right now, if you were jus’ complaining about all us idiots popping out of the ground like daisies you’d be pissed as shit to see the place we’ve camped out in.”

“…How does she look?”  Fareeha asked, hesitantly.  “She didn’t tell me much of what happened. And it’s not like…her face has made headlines recently.”

“She’s a bit…scarred up.”  McCree admitted. “There’s burns on her.  Some of the ones on her middle looked pretty bad, but I only saw a lil bit.  She was caught in a bombed building, Fareeha. I don’t have too much more to report yet...none of us have…exchanged stories.  We’ve been waiting for Jack to wake up.”

“And Jack? Gabriel?”  She was almost desperate for information, hating that they’d hid but it was also her first time to hear anything about them. She wanted to know.

“Jack’s gone all white, he looks…older.  He looks better than Ana on the scar front, but there are two big slashes on his face.”  He felt the mask in his hands. “Ana and I guessed that…he and Gabe fought. And I think the scars are from Reaper’s talons.  Right now he’s got a shotgun blast in his back. Kinda looks like some kinda… biochemical agent was added to it though.” He grumbled, a certain red haired irritant coming to mind.  “Gabe…looks like he was really caught in the blast.” He made a really guilty noise, before continuing. “He’s….changed. Physically. He had…fuck, this is gross, an extra set of teeth?  At least 3 or maybe 5 eyes? Fareeha, It’s…it’s definitely him, but  _ something’s _ happened to him.”

She took a deep breath.  “That’s…there’s a lot to unpack there.”  She murmured. “I  _ know _ you wouldn’t pull my leg about this, but…that sounds like something out of a horror movie, Jesse.”

“Don’t I know it?”  He smoothly replied, as Ana crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.  “Okay, now I really gotta go. She’s tapping her foot at me.”

“Thank you for telling me.”  She told him quietly, instead of letting him get off with just a goodbye.  “Stay safe. Call me when you’re able.”

“Love ya Fairy.  I’ll be sure to, promise.”  He snapped his comm closed, before standing and brushing his backside off of what sand he could shake loose, before walking towards her.

“I take it that others know you survived, then,” Ana said, voice barely short of stony.  McCree dipped his head in agreement, understanding her…likely complicated feelings on the matter. 

“Truth be told I was gonna do the same thing y’all had.  But I got caught on the day of y’alls funerals. Angela found me at Gabe’s grave.”  He rubbed his neck, almost guilty. “But we can talk inside. I take it that Jack’s up?”

Ana nodded slowly.  “He thinks you patched him up better than I could have.”  She threw out there quietly, and McCree shrugged. 

“I ain’t good at it, but I guess I’ve had to do it more often you prolly have.  Is he off my ass now, then?”

“For now.” 

They entered the crypt to Jack Morrison sitting up, stitches looking like something out of a child’s drawing of Frankenstein.  McCree made a face at his handiwork, and Jack waved a hand. “It’s not bad, McCree- Ana’s work looks like a butcher goes at it.”  He gave McCree praise at Ana’s expense, and Ana puffed out a sigh. 

“I could let you do it yourself.”  She sharply reminded. “You’re always welcome to take over.”

He gave a sheepish good guy grin, and Jesse felt extremely odd.  His picture of the strike commander was different than the man sitting here, but Ana seemed…at peace with this. 

“McCree, any chance you have whiskey?”  Shocked, but moving without a word despite that, Jesse took his flask from its holster and handed it over.  “Good man,” Jack murmured, taking a swig.

“Yanno, I still don’t like how that looks.”  Jesse murmured.

“McCree’s right, we should take you to a doctor.”  Ana pressed a bit stronger. “There’s something very wrong with it- we had to carry you all the way here.”

“I doubt a doctor will know how to deal with this.”

“Angela’s real close to here.”  Jesse suggested mildly, rubbing his neck.

“No doctors, and  _ especially _ no Angela,” Jack vetoed, voice going flat.

“It frankly looks like it was laced with a biological agent, Morrison.”  Jesse sharply gave his professional opinion. “We all know you should be healing it by now.  And we all know a certain  _ good doctor _ with a bit of a track record.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to see Angela?”  Ana asked, a bit stronger after Jesse’s reminder.

Jack sighed.  “There’s no need for formalities, call me Jack.”  The older man corrected. “And we’d have to tell her we aren’t dead, Ana.  That’s a conversation for another day.”

Jesse shrugged, and Ana raised an eyebrow, gesturing to him with a bit of frank exasperation. Jack faltered a bit, before hardening again, shaking his head in finality.  “No Angela.” He put his foot down on the matter.

Things went quiet for a moment, before Ana decided to ask.  “Now, McCree. You mentioned needing to talk about things privately.  I doubt we can get more private than this.”

McCree eyed the ancient Egyptian relics and the various types of military equipment that Jack and Ana had clearly been amassing; he didn’t show too much disgust at recognizing of of those jars with organs in them hanging around a bit too close to where Ana’s tea kettle- one of those fancy looking ones, hers in Gold- was sitting.   “Only have the dead around to hear, I suppose” Jesse agreed, huffing.

“How did you survive without anyone knowing?”  Jack asked, getting the gist of Ana’s prompt, repeating his own earlier question.  “Gabe personally threw his entire being into the hunt, but nothin’ ever turned up. Quite the feat- if you were so good at vanishing, Ana and I told Gabe you would have left long before this incident.”

Jesse closed his eye painfully at the reminder, before he opened it, needing to face it.  “When I woke up in Poland, I couldn’t remember a  _ damn _ thing. Not who I was, not what had happened, nothing.  I was a John Doe, and for months I sat in a hospital in pain and confusion.”  He took his flask out of Jack’s hands, to take a swig. “The doc told me I was lucky, and I pointed out I was only as lucky as someone with shrapnel and glass embedded in your skull and skin.”  He tapped at the scarring around the eye patch, still feeling aches of phantom pain. “Worse, I lost the use of my left arm altogether.” He lifted up the metal arm that he’d since replaced it with.

“Doesn’t make sense, though.  If you didn’t know who you were, how could you possibly have avoided being found?”  Jack asked, clearly stumped. “There wasn’t a trace of you.”

“And it wasn’t for lack of searching.”  Ana murmured, getting up to make tea, grabbing her golden kettle off the makeshift dirt counter.  “We used all the resources on hand to find you. Gabriel never forgave himself for leaving you behind…but at some point, we all had to try and tell him,  _ tell ourselves  _ that you were gone, and he was being irrational.  But he never stopped saying, that there was no way you could be dead.”  The final words she wanted to say hung between them.

_ And he was right. _

McCree made a soft noise of guilt, one that he disguised with another swig.  “When I woke up, I made a real pain in the ass out of myself, and I convinced the doc to keep me out of the system, dangerous people were after me.”

“We’re dangerous?”  Jack asked, raising an eyebrow as he attempted to joke with Jesse, calming down considerably from his earlier accusatory attitude.

Jesse looked to his hands and pulled out the mask, staring down at it before he held it up for them.  “Nah,  _ y’all _ ain’t.  Gabriel, though, he sure as  _ hell _ turned out to be.”

They all went quiet, recalling the black ghost in their midst, the missing friend that loomed over them all. 

After that moment of perverse nostalgia, recalling Gabriel for the man he had been, Jesse started back up.  “I did eventually put the pieces back together. I unno which ones are real, but they’ve been what I’ve had to go off of.  Last month Genji didn’t even realize somethin’ was wrong until I told him, so I can’t say it’s lead me wrong yet.” He sighed.  “That mission…I was filling in for you.” 

He looked to Ana.  “It wasn’t a problem on a topical level, I’d been one of the unlucky fucks who did the briefings and Intel reports. You yourself put me forward, Ana, and it was approved by you Jack.  I was trained by Ana, of course if she tapped me I’d fit the needed position. Unfortunately, even though I was a good shot, I wasn’t a trained sniper.” He reminded, huffing. “We were pinned down, and I was flushing them out.  But then someone  _ else _ engaged us.”

Jack and Ana looked down, and Jesse knew they understood what had happened then.

“I remember lining up the shot.  I remember that I was unable to dead eye again, but after that…for a long while, everything just goes blank the second after I have the shot.  Almost like I didn’t wanna remember who it was that I saw through the standard issue sniper scope. It came to me alright, and for a long time I didn’t wanna believe it.”

“Amélie Lacroix.”  Jack tilted his head forward as he spoke her name into reality, and it hit Jesse all over again like a sack of rocks to the chest.

Ana closed her eyes. “Poor Gérard,” She sighed wistfully as she waited for the water to boil.  “Just weeks ago in London, some have accused a sniper known as the Widowmaker of assassinating Mondatta, the omnic rights activist, in London.  Jack and I have thought that that has to be her.” 

A few moments later, she came back over with cups, handing Jack one, letting McCree turn it down politely.  Silence ruled over them then, Jesse’s explanation finished.

“Why are you here, Jesse?”  Jack asked, serious. 

“Well,” He rubbed his neck, putting his flask back where it belonged.  “At first I was just…looking for answers. Then I saw  _ your _ mug on the news,” he pointed an accusing finger at Jack.  “And I got…well, I heard you had a companion.” He looked down.  “I got my hopes up, and even though it wasn’t who I thought it was, I was gonna track you down regardless.”

He shifted.  “Turned out I had a whole  _ other _ reason to be disappointed, but I’m here now, and I figure…if y’all are going after Talon, I owe a few folks a few bullets in a few skulls, and you’d be the folks to talk to.”

“You always were like a dog with a bone.”  Ana murmured, eyes sympathetic. “And always had a thing for revenge.”

“It’s not revenge, it’s justice.”  Jesse argued hotly. “These folks have got it coming, Ana.  And if anyone’s gonna take down Gabriel, if  _ that’s _ who he’s become…it seems fitting it’d be me.”

Jack had perked up considerably at his reasoning, and he sat up, grunting slightly.  “You’re right, and I  _ knew _ you’d see it like me.  Gabriel is out there, and he’s got to be stopped.  Talon is getting more powerful. They  _ need _ to be stopped, and everything that we’ve suffered— everything that you’ve suffered—needs to be made good on.”  He nodded, impassioned by Jesse’s own take on the matter. “I’m going to take them apart, piece by piece.” His fists balled up, and he clenched his teeth.  “But we’ve hit a snag here.” 

“It’s not a snag.”  Ana disagreed, voice firm. “We stopped in Dorado as well, Jack.”

“We were still in and out.”  Jack disagreed, shaking his head.  “What you’re wanting to do is too much, Ana.”

“We are responsible for this, Jack.”  Ana disagreed, smoothly, as Jack took a sip of his tea.  “And at the moment, all  _ you _ need to do is recover.  I told you before, you’re running your body dry.”

“I’m a soldier, Ana.  I was made for this.” He darkly reminded.  “We both were. And now that Gabriel knows Jesse  _ and _ us are alive, do you  _ really _ think he’ll just let us do this?”

Ana sighed, and Jesse butted in, “Jack, I hate to say it, but right now you can’t stand.   You passed out in the streets. If Gabe showed his ugly mug right here, right now all you’d be able to do would be to give him a mean middle finger.”

“Don’t let this go, Jesse,” Jack desperately tried.  “Don’t be like the others. They dismantled everything we spent our lives building, and then they made us into villains.” 

Jesse made a quiet noise.  “Oh, I’m familiar with that happening,” Jesse murmured darkly, and Jack recoiled slightly, seeming suddenly concerned. 

“If this is about what happened to Blackwatch…” Jack tilted his head and shook it warily, and Jesse snorted.

“What? No.  I want justice  _ too _ , Jack, I just think we need to be smart about it.”  Jesse explained his thought process. “I ain’t holding a grudge against you, or I wouldn’t be here, old man.”

“Jack, some of us can move on.”  Ana exasperatedly told him. “Why would he have helped us over Gabriel if he was on Blackwatch’s side.”

“This  _ is _ moving on,” Jack defended himself again, struggling to find purchase in his cot, to sit up and properly argue. 

“You’re excited.”  Ana pat his shoulder to put him down in the bed again.  “Not thinking straight. We’ll all talk more after.” She stood up straight, and Jesse had to choke down a snicker as Jack put the pieces together just after him. 

“Ana, did you…” He was cut off as his eyes rolled up and he passed out on the bed, his grip going lose on his mug as he fell back asleep.

Jesse rolled his eyes as he took the mug out of his hands, and Ana waited a few more moments to rearrange him carefully on the bed.  “Not my proudest moment,” she muttered, and Jesse finally let himself guffaw. 

“Oh, yeah, drugging the strike commander.  I hope you know how many years of dashed plans you just made good on there.”  He teased mildly, helping her tuck him back in. “But…I take it you want to stick in Cairo a bit.”

“He’s not been the strike commander for a long time.”  Ana reminded quietly, setting his mug down on the counter after taking it from Jesse.  “And…yes. I do.” She was quiet. “This was our fault. The shutdown of the Anubis project, the country’s been left a mess. My country.”  She closed her eyes. “Jack disagrees, clearly. He thinks people like Hakim exist everywhere and it’s no longer our job to deal with them how we used to. However, if Gabriel was here, that tells me that Talon is behind some of this.”  She solidified. “We can’t just leave without doing something.” 

“Mmm.”  Jesse settled down, quiet.  “Far as I see it, I know Gabriel’s here. As of right now, he’s who I’m after, and this is my best lead.”  He rubbed his neck. “But I’ve been looking for something to do. This would be a place to start, if y’all would have me.”

Ana gave him a long look.  “I… I must ask, Jesse. None of us were bold enough to ask Gabriel, but… we figured.  And I saw what you and he were doing. How you two touched each other. I cannot cast any judgment on choosing not to come back, but… what did Gabriel lose, when he lost you?”

Jesse was quiet, for a very long time. 

“He was…he and I.”  He had a few small false starts. “It was always complicated.  At first I was an apprentice, and then I was his coworker, soon his equal.  I had always been good in leadership, and I was a damn good right hand. I’d been that for Ashe, and I became that for him real smooth.  From there it became into close friends.” He rubbed his arms. 

“I think my feelings started to…grow, then.  But I couldn’t have him- I loved his wife and his kids, they were like my family.  I was…I was practically those kids uncle, even though we weren’t far apart in age, it was in our life experiences.  I remember his girl accusing me of being in my 30s… Ana- you  _ know _ I would never have set foot there.  That was his family, and I wouldn’t touch it.  I wasn’t ever a home wrecker. I always preferred to build.”

“But then he and his wife divorced.”  Ana murmured, quiet, putting pieces together after Jesse trailed off into silence, defensive.

“And then they divorced.”  Jesse agreed, quiet. “And we became…closer. Bit by bit.  I don’t remember all of it. Not really. But it must have started before London, and after Venice.  We were together, close. Nothin’ was ever said, nothin’ was ever concrete, but…there was the physical, and my heart had  _ always _ been real caught.”  He closed his eyes as he remembered the tender kiss they’d shared on the ground in Cairo. 

He opened his eyes, and Ana was looking unbelievably soft, sitting across from him, and putting a hand over his.  “I’m sorry for your loss,” She murmured. “I don’t understand where it is…Gabriel has gone, but I know that he cared for you deeply.”

“I don’t know where he’s gone either.”  Jesse bowed his head. “Or how he got there.  All I know is that he’s there now, and I can’t pull him out, or understand why he’s gone and fucked up this bad.”  He sighed. 

He looked to Jack’s body.  “How long will he be out, anyways?”

“Maybe a day,” She honestly answered, tiredness suddenly obvious on her.  She’d been traveling with Jack for so long, it’d been so long since Zurich. They both understood the weight of such a long mission better than most did, and Jesse gave her a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.  “… How is my daughter doing?” She asked, voice soft. 

“Fareeha?”  He raised an eyebrow, shocked at the change in conversation.  “She’s…she’s done good.” He decided to say, casually. “She knows about you and Jack, and now…Gabriel as well.  I think she’s done her best, and I think she’s done a good job.” Jesse rubbed his hands together. “She likes her new position, even if it makes her a little crazy.  Lots of people compare her to you, and she doesn’t know how to feel about it anymore. I can’t blame you, I get hiding yourself, I did it at first. I just…I’m glad I decided to stop,” He finished lamely.

Ana gave him a long conflicted look, searching in him for something she couldn’t find in his expression. 

The silence was broken by the sound of his comm ringing.  He pulled it out from his pocket, and was disturbed to see a no name ID show up on his device. 

He answered it casually, looking calmer than he was.  “Hello?” He said carefully, keeping his tone even. 

“Now, vulture, I hope you didn’t think I’d not follow up on more information, especially once I found out what  _ other _ kinds of information you had on hand.”

“Sombra,” McCree answered coolly.  “Information, huh? Tell me about Reaper first.”

“Oh, him?”  She laughed.  “Are  _ you _ why he’s in such a bad mood?” The woman let those last words drag out, and Jesse felt his mood sour completely.  Of course she was Talon.

“I’m not all that fond of his  _ employer _ ,” He threatened lowly, and she chuckled to herself.

“Relax, I’m not attached either.  I have my own uses for them, just as you’ve used others.  Deadlock, now that’s an interesting tie. Their leader’s been making moves recently, but I suppose you’ve made moves to stir the pot there as well.”  She chuckled, but McCree just waited. “Well, I suppose I can say he’s here throwing a tantrum. He wants you.” She let that sit there. “Now, my question, which is about miss Ashe.  She’s got this lovely estate in Paris, I hear. I just need to know where I might be able to find it…”

“It’s by the river near the omnic quarter.”  McCree sold out instantly. “Pink and white is the color palette.  Maybe a few blocks from that one burlesque bar with the cat omnic.”

“You are just a treasure trove of things, aren’t you?  Betrayal is one of them, I guess.” She hummed, feigning being nonjudgmentally judgmental as she tried to get under his skin.   It made him grind his teeth. 

“Reaper.  You mentioned a tantrum.”  He demanded, watching Ana’s face go quizzical.  He turned on speakerphone to accommodate her, only huffing in mild irritability at having to hold it like he was some middle aged woman struggling to use the newer cell phones. “Give me some insight.  He wasn’t ever a tantrum kind of person.”

A laugh.  “He isn’t now either.  But,  _ you, _ you really threw a wrench in things.”  She amusedly commented, biting into something crunchy before she continued.  “I’ve never seen him like this, even when he was angry at the outcome of something. I’ve certainly never see him kill Talon soldier after Talon soldier as they bring him back in line.”  She hummed. “Ah, there they go. Big man’s down. You know, I have to thank you, I never thought I’d see this piece, I only ever suspected it.”

Ana’s face turned a shade of green, as Sombra hummed again.  “And…there it is. He’s been mollified, for the time being. He’s crying now, but that's more easily ignored while they figure out how to tell him you’re alive,  _ again _ .” 

“How are you seeing all that?”  Jesse asked, voice strained, feeling something sick developing in his gut. 

“Well, obviously, I’m watching camera footage.”  She snickered in amusement. “But I’m on site as well.  Just watching the show from the comfort of my own room.”  She let that settle a bit. “You have an audience, might I wager a guess that I’m speaking to the other bird of prey there?”

Ana’s expression hardened and Jesse gave her a helpless look, gesturing wildly to let her know that he hadn’t thought she would know he’d turned on speakerphone. 

“I’m the primary one you wanted.”  Jesse reminded her, firm. “But…yes.  Shrike is here. Now what’d they do to him?”

“Ah, I think I’m entitled to some more important information for that particular answer.”  Sombra disagreed, purring. “Shrike, about Gérard Lacroix, if I wanted to, mmm, well, access things from his old files…how might I go about locating them?”  Her teeth clenched and creaked, but she looked to Jesse and then answered, suddenly sure of herself.

“His files are grouped up under the code name, Swan Lake.  That ballet was the show she was in, when he first saw Amélie perform.” Ana ground out.

“Oh, now that’s tricky.” She hummed.  “But useful. Alright, I’ll bite, McCree…if that is your real name.”  She enunciated that  _very_ clearly, questioning what she had learned. He waited, unwilling to give her anything, and she sighed, before rambling on.  “He’s a weapon, and a good one at that. No need for pesky things like morals or lingering attachments. Anger is useful, as is the desire for revenge.”  She sniffed. “You being dead was very useful, and being alive is significantly less than good.” She sighed. “But crying is better than questioning or worse, demanding.  I’d watch your head, McCree.”

“Your coworker fucked it up once.”  He reminded her, steely.

Sombra laughed.  “She won’t do it again, but I’ll keep that in mind.  It’s always fun to play with their spider. Ah, he’s quit crying and gotten off the floor.  Just going out for some air,” She paused, and McCree was already on his feet.

“Could I find him?”  McCree asked, and it clicked for Ana what his plan was.

“Oh,” She chuckled.  “Deciding to chase him now?  I’ll just need to know one tiny detail before I can tell you how to get there.  Where are you?”

“I can’t tell you that.”  Jesse put his foot down, and Ana breathed out relief.

“Disappointing, McCree.” Sombra sighed, seeming longing.  “I was hoping I’d be able to make friends with 76 and his treasure trove of information, but I suppose that can wait until you trust me more.”  She tapped a few things. “Now then, I can’t just give away such a valuable assets location free. What would you tell me to get him?”

“You’re against Talon, if you’re talking to us.”  Ana asked, taking control as Jesse faltered, as he was the add-on here.  “Yes?”

“I am not for Talon, yes.  I have my own agenda.” 

“Director Petras was Talon aligned but not Talon himself.”  Ana said, snippy. “He was deeper than Talon. There. Now where’s Gabriel?”

Sombra was quiet for a long moment, before she sent a location to Jesse’s phone.

“Pleasure working with you,” She said, seeming pleased.  “Help yourself.”

Jesse was up and moving before the line even went dead, Ana booking it right behind him.

XXXXX

Sombra’s lead took them to a restaurant in another area of Cairo, and specifically a booth.  McCree walked first, purposefully looking around for black hood or black smoke.

Upon the first sweep, he almost wanted to break something, because there was no Gabriel here.  There was no smoke, no tears. He mostly wanted to break his comm since Sombra had sent him on a damn goose chase.

He turned around to tell Ana, whose eyes widened and focused behind him. 

Suddenly, something warm pressed itself up against his back, wrapped smoking hands around his midsection, and settled its face in the crook of his neck purposefully, giving a dramatic sigh.  McCree was almost afraid to move, but he decided they had to move forward now. 

“Gabriel?”  He prompted, wanting to be sure this was him.

The face nuzzled against him, far warmer than a human should be.  It wasn’t unpleasant, but Jesse reached back around, stretching considerably to grab him and slowly pull him around.  Gabriel chased the mutual contact, and eventually he had him in front of him, having released his arms, his head bowed forward as he stood there, breathing and not saying a word.  He threw a gaze towards Ana, then back at Gabriel.

The man had removed his Reaper outfit, and now black smoke seeped out from the hood of a more recognizable deep black hoodie, his tight pants gone in favor of sweats.  Gabriel didn’t look up, his gaze was down and Jesse couldn't see his face.

He took his right hand and dipped into the consuming darkness, and his fingertips found a face.  Slowly, he traced Gabriel’s jawline, feeling Gabriel rub himself against the contact, the front of his cheeks suspiciously wet as he used his thumb to wipe away the tears.

“Gabriel,” Jesse murmured, voice soft.  His forefinger found Gabriel’s chin, and lifted his face up, while the other hand pushed back the hood. 

Red eyes were foggy and blank, tears dripping down quietly as he stared in open adoration.  He smiled, and Gabriel returned the expression, hesitantly. “Hey, Gabe.” Jesse softly called, watching Gabriel light up again. “Why are you crying?”

His expression darkened, and he looked down once again.  “Because, you’re dead.” Gabriel’s voice was distant and soft, and tears fell down onto Jesse’s hand.  “This isn’t real. Even though I want it to be.”

Jesse sent a look to Ana; eyebrow raised as he mentally questioned that.  Instead of reminding Gabe about their fight, he pulled him against his body in a hug that Gabriel melted into.  “I’m here, Gabe.” He soothed, holding him protectively, snaking a tender hand around the back of Gabriel’s head to pull him in and kiss the crown of his head.  “Let’s…go for a walk together, I’m here right now.” He invited, slowly pulling Gabriel out with him. Ana took the cue to walk out ahead of them. 

They didn't go very far before Gabriel dug his heels into the ground.  “I can’t leave the city,” He told Jesse, settling on a wall. “Can’t we just...sit here for a moment.  Before you’re gone again.” He tried, giving Jesse a pleading look, red eyes wide and wet, black smoke leaking from his body in its anxiety. 

Jesse looked to Ana again, before he sat down. “Alright.”  He allowed. “Okay. I can sit here.” He agreed. “Hey, Gabe, look at you.” He turned towards him and rubbed his cheek, the face molding itself into something a lot more recognizably human.  There were only two eyes, and the bone was largely covered by skin again, smoke laying itself and reforming the man Jesse knew. Gabriel gave him a soft look, and leaned against the hand. 

“Look at  _ you _ ,” Gabriel murmured.  “Handsome. Only a reminder of what…what Widowmaker did to you, is new.” A hand, tentative, not quite shaking, reached out and touched the eye patch, before he leaned forward and kissed it.

Jesse hugged him reassuringly, feeling overwhelmingly warm at the sweet gesture.  “Talon hurt you,” He prompted, and Gabriel’s expression fell, the smoke falling away from his skin and leaving him the broken man he was.  A third eye opened and cried a tear the rest of him wouldn’t let out while he was talking.

“I work for them.”  He said lowly, avoiding the explaining and yet, managing to tell Jesse everything he needed to know.  “While I use my emotions to…remind me why I do this…my emotions make me vulnerable. My grief is…well, obviously, it goes deep and it hurts.  I see things like you when I know you’re gone.”

“Talon is why you’re out here alone, crying,” Jesse reminded him, more forceful in his delivery.  “You don’t need to be here alone, crying.”

“I don’t have anyone to go to, Jesse.”  His voice was quiet, resigned. “I had you, I needed you.  I searched for you for so long. But you’re gone.” He curled up closer as black smoke swallowed him like a familiar blanket, voice reverent and yet, mournful. “I lost you.”

Ana slowly walked forward, giving Jesse a questioning look.  What could they do from here? While Gabriel was vulnerable, he’d drawn a hard line- no further than the city limits.

“Are you still looking for me?”  Jesse asked, trying to bait him.

“If…if you were still alive, yes.” Smoke fell away again as he emerged to continue talking with Jesse.  Gabriel was still clearly under the influence of whatever they’d done to him to quiet him down, his eyes foggy and clearly not thinking about the fact he was settled besides Jesse.  He missed the meaning behind Jesse’s words, and Jesse let him have that. He ruffled his hair reassuringly.

Ana got McCree’s idea, and took out a slip of paper, and McCree grabbed a pen from his own pockets.  Ana wrote down Jesse- necropolis, and handed it back towards him. He slipped it into Gabriel’s pocket, and patted it a few times.  “Alright. When you’re feeling better, I need you to come here, okay? When you can come to me. I’m waiting for you. You’ve not lost me Gabe.  Promise.”

“You’re leaving?” Gabriel asked, red eyes blinking.  He looked almost indignantly at Jesse, pulling him back towards him.  “No.” He rejected that, pressing himself against Jesse. Jesse, sighing, let himself be pulled back in. Claws dug into his shirt, and kept him planted there with Gabriel.  It was an almost childish motion. “You don’t get to walk away. I want you with me as long as I have you.” He dug his claws in possessively, drawing blood and getting Jesse to flinch.

“Gabe, that hurts,” He murmured, wincing as he extracted Gabriel’s hands, noting the blood that dripped from the blackened bloodied tips, sharpened into dangerous looking claws, and caught the petulant look on Gabriel’s face, solidified into something more human looking.  The more expressive extra red eyes considered him now, squinting at him like he was on the verge of a revelation he had missed. 

Jesse squeezed the hands, and looked out to the city.  “I have to leave, yeah.” Jesse murmured. “And you don’t want to leave the city limits, so I have to leave you here.  But you can join me.” Jesse said, trying to reassure him. 

The frown that settled on his face, into his scarred and smoking face persisted, and Jesse stepped back to where the edges of the city ended and the sand began.  Gabriel’s frown deepened. 

“No.  Jesse, get back here.” He ordered, and his voice more strongly sounded like the man Jesse used to know, though a shade of it.  He was irritated and plastered that over his face instead of showing his anxiety. “I need you, Jesse,” He tried, pulling the smoke together again, leaving behind the face of Blackwatch, red eyes focused intently on Jesse- all extra eyes and too sharp teeth hidden as Gabriel- as he remembered him- stood there.  His clawed hand reached out, and Jesse took another purposeful step away to avoid his grasp. The talons closed on air, and Gabriel took in a sharp breath in surprise. 

The façade broke, and Gabriel’s face changed back into its swirling mess of emotions, black smoke running over the shifting layout of his eyes and teeth and scars.  The hand stayed there for a moment, before it dropped.

“I have to go now, Gabe.  And you don’t want to leave the city.  I can’t let Talon find me, Gabe. They’ll hurt me like how they hurt you.”  He kept the part about how they could very well just kill him outright. 

Gabriel shook his head.  “McCree,” He refused staunchly, sounding infinitely more irritable.  “Get your ass back here. I’ll protect you. They wouldn’t dare hurt you.”

Jesse bit his lip, and made the tough call. He took additional steps back.  “I can’t go with you, and I can’t stay. I’ll be in the necropolis.” He gave him a sincere look.  “They can and will do something to me, and I don't want to die.” He put his hands out, and continued to step back.

Red eyes widened as his brow creased, anxiety and desperation flashing in his expression as he suddenly began to pace back and forth.  “Jesse, please.” He called, his hand reaching out like it could grab him. “Please, Jesse. Please. I need you to listen to me. I need you here.”

“I can’t do that, Gabe.”  He refused. “They’re the ones who tried to kill me last time, and you know…that if they want you to behave, and I make you act like this, there’s no way they’re gonna let me stay like this.  You can’t protect me. You can’t even protect yourself from what they’ve done to you.”

Gabriel stared down at the floor, his hands dropping, his expression suddenly stricken.

“I’ll see you again, Gabriel.”  He promised, soft. “You don’t want to come.  And I can’t go there. So…this is goodbye, for now.”

_ Those  _ words forced a growl from Gabriel’s throat, deep and dark as the smoke that encompassed him swirled angrily and red eyes glistened like blood as he looked up sharply to stare balefully after Jesse. 

Jesse nodded at him sorrowfully, and turned around, and walked away, the light of day starting to shine on the horizon. 

“Wait.”  He called to Jesse, and Jesse paused, turning to Ana and nodding, suddenly relieved they wouldn’t be leaving him to the wolves. 

Gabriel took off his hoodie, and reached into the skin on one arm, and ripped out a chip, blood and black sludge leaking from the wound temporarily as black smoke leaked up around it.  “Jesus Gabe!” Jesse shouted, staying out of reach but taking a few steps forward.

In his fit, or tantrum- whatever it was- Gabriel tossed it to the side, and then he stomped forward and met Jesse in the middle.  He stood there, face down, radiating anger and sudden anxiety.

Jesse carefully touched his shoulder; making a noise at the wound he’d given himself.  But instead of worrying or touching the swirling black fog that knitted up the skin anymore, he trailed his hand down, and entwined his fingers with Gabriel’s.  “Alright.” He said, taken aback. “That was slightly dramatic.” He commented, still a bit taken aback. “But…you’re coming with, then?”

“Yes.”  Gabriel growled, turning to the side to look at him fully. “If this isn’t real I’m going to be very cross with you, Jesse.”  He squeezed Jesse’s hand possessively. 

“But what if it is?”  Jesse asked, for the sake of knowing what he might be getting into. 

For a moment, Gabriel didn’t seem to know how to answer, his face going blank, his eyes focusing on the distance, his grip on Jesse loosening.

“If it’s real…then I’ve just gotten myself in a lot of trouble.”  He admitted. “But… you’d be alive.” He considered, careful. “And…Talon killed you…” He recalled, anger draining out of him as fast as it’d come. 

“Talon killed you when I needed you, and…they would have known, wouldn’t they?  They would have known that you’re alive. And they would have had to have lied to me.”  Reaper’s deep voice suddenly shook in anger. “They would have had to lie.” He sneered.  “And they couldn’t have that, now could they, they’d fix things so that it matched reality, and that would put you back in an unmarked grave somewhere.” He shook his head.  “If this is real, then…”

Jesse watched, waited, as the man shook his head, and pulled himself together.

Gabe looked at Jesse with a worried gaze that slowly faded into anger as he focused back in on Jesse.  “If this is real, I…I’d have to have words with Talon over my medication. With my gun at someone’s head.”

“Well then,” Jesse hummed, wrapping the man in a hug.  “When your medication’s out of your system, then you’ll know, won’t you?  For now…let’s get outta dodge, okay? If its fake then you won’t be in trouble, right?  What’s the worst that could happen?”

Ana gave Jesse a bewildered look, as though she was wondering if he’d forgotten how he’d treated them not even half a day before- or if he knew how much he was tempting fate right then.  Jesse gave her a slow nod, but squeezed Gabriel close. 

“The worst that could happen,” Gabriel repeated, voice flat.  “Jesse, you’d still be dead. And I’d still be mostly dead and alone.  If you’re not real, I did just rip out my tracker, and that’ll get Talon to swarm the place looking for me.”

Ana looked alarmed and immediately set out.  Jesse took Gabe’s hand into his metal one, and rubbed Gabriel’s cheek with the other, mirroring earlier affections- both mocking and meaningful. “Do you trust me?” He asked, voice low. 

Gabriel’s red eyes softened as he leaned back to watch Jesse carefully, their neon color dimming and leaving something a lot more pleasant- a wine colored stare that didn’t look half as angry or torn up about things, or ready to kill at the drop of a hat.  “You know I do.” He agreed, and Jesse took in a breath, letting it out slowly. 

“Then we’re going, together.”  He released the hug and tugged harder on Gabe’s hand, ignoring the talons at the end of his fingertips in favor of how Gabriel immediately latched on to it like a lost man in the desert. 

Ana had already started the trek out, and Jesse tugged Gabriel along, leading them out of the city, into the dunes, and into the night air that started to warm up with the first streaks of dawn painting their way across the grand desert before them.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback is loved and appreciated !


	5. And I Need Your Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go! it was a bit late, but hopefully it was worth that wait.

As soon as they got back to the necropolis, Jesse let Gabe’s hand go for a second, asking him to wait here a moment, while Ana paced at the entrance to where Jack was

As soon as they got back to the necropolis, Jesse let Gabe's hand go for a second, asking him to wait here a moment, while Ana paced at the entrance to where Jack was still sleeping off what she'd drugged him with to recover from what Gabriel shot him with.

"This is a bad idea," She said instantly as he approached alone. "Jesse, what are you thinking?" She hissed in a whisper.

"I'm thinking, maybe I can talk sense into him?" He suggested, somewhat meek as Ana gave him a somewhat overwhelmed look.

"Right, talk sense into the homicidal murderer." The two of them turned to look at him. In the distance, Gabriel sat himself down at the edge of the cliff to watch what was left of the sunrise.

"I didn't want to leave him." Jesse murmured, feeling unbearably soft when Gabriel looked back to them both, as though to check that Jesse hadn't disappeared. Ana struggled with that, her mouth working for a moment, before she wrapped her arms around her chest, and one hand went to her chin.

"I understand, Jesse." She carefully agreed. "He's…what I heard from Sombra, what we're seeing right now, it all makes him seem rather…confused, and in need of protection." She paused, thinking of how best to phrase it. "But when he does… 'Wake up,' even if he responds positively to you, and stretching it, even if he's alright with me…there's no doubt in my mind that he and Jack are going to be at each other's throats."

Jesse made a soft noise as Gabriel turned away from the risen sun to stare at him instead. "I know." He murmured. "Even if I can convince him not to fuck with Jack, Jack's angry and he's got a million reasons to be. They're gonna fight. But Ana, I couldn't leave him there. Something fucked up happened and I want my answers, and right now we have the man who has a lot of them."

"I didn't want to leave him either." She reminded, quiet. "I was giving him our location. But there's something very different about bringing a drugged, most likely hallucinating man to our hideout and that man waking up from that elsewhere and realizing something real happened." She laid out her concern clearly, and Jesse made a soft noise of agreement, considering them. "He'll be suspicious of our intentions."

"He stomped out here on his own." Jesse reminded. "He ripped out his tracker himself. He wanted to stick with me, we were gonna leave him."

"My concern is what happens if he can't recall doing that," Ana questioned, watching Gabriel rise to his feet again, apparently drawn in by something on the walls.

"Then things might get messy." Jesse agreed, letting himself be a bit concerned about Gabriel not recalling anything up to getting here. "But, outside the heat of battle, he said something pretty interesting about his view on Talon and what they did to me. And about his medication. One way or another he got here from Talon's set up, and the fact that Talon had to know by now that I was alive, and had him invested in a narrative I wasn't, meant they were lying to him, and it meant his medication was doing things to such an extent, well- Gabriel, and really, Reaper, would be upset about."

Ana hummed, thinking about it, as Gabriel walked to the wall and rubbed the old stone with a clawed, smoking hand, gaze stuck up on the figures that loomed above them in the ruins.

"He's here now," Jesse murmured softly, "And he and I were always good at winging it when the going got tough."

"I just hope you're right," Ana murmured, "And this doesn't backfire spectacularly in our faces."

Gabriel suddenly drew his hand back inwards, and Jesse worriedly threw Ana a look. He started jogging over to where Gabriel started to curl inwards on himself, and broke into a run when the man leaned forward against the wall, slowly sinking to the ground.

" _Gabe_?" Jesse breathlessly called, snapping his fingers in an attempt to get his attention, worried, as the man seized up, choking, smoke pouring out of his mouth as his many eyes opened wide and his head was thrown back. McCree helped him to the floor, laying him down in shock as the spectacle went on. He took off his serape to give Gabriel a pillow.

The man's body contorted and gathered for a few moments that felt like an eternity, Jesse helpless to watch, his hands working over his form.

Then the light in his eyes went out, and he went loose on the floor, his form going hazy at the edges and hardly keeping itself in one piece. The eyes closed and he went quiet.

Jesse waited to make sure the seizure was truly finished, before falling to his knees, checking for a pulse.

Gabriel felt hot- he'd always been a heater, and now it was just amplified. The pulse was there, fast at first, but steadying out with the moments passing them by. Ana met Jesse next to Gabriel, and she blew out a careful, worried breath. "Alright." She whispered. "Let's…take him inside. Set him up in a bed.  _Away_ from Jack." She firmly instructed, and Jesse quietly listened, scooping up black smoke that dripped down and wisped around his unconscious form ethereally.

He felt too light between them, but he supposed that was accounted for by how much of him was drifting around them as black fog.

XXXXX

They ended up setting him (and Jesse, by extension) in a smaller, more secluded area of the necropolis. Far away from where Jack still rested, and ideally where Gabriel wouldn't be able to sniff him out and cause a major stink between the two of them.

Jesse laid his serape over Gabriel's still form, resting on a cot by himself. He took a moment to stroke his cheek, looking over him and wondering what, exactly, had happened.

"I'm going back out, after I get some sleep." Ana murmured, voice low. "Jack will be asleep for some time, and I need to get food…and perhaps, more, for when Gabriel wakes up."

"Alright." Jesse agreed, uneasy with the unspoken thing that in spite of how affectionate Gabriel had been with him not even 20 minutes before, the man who woke from this could be the unrepentant Reaper, or it could be some other monster they've yet to meet yet.

"We'll talk more later, Jesse." Ana promised; leaving the tomb Jesse was now going to sleep in, and sealing it for everyone's protection.

Exhaustion suddenly hit Jesse like a physical thing, angry at him for doing so much without giving his own body the time to rest. He looked over to where Gabriel was unconscious, and less than gracefully moved towards him in the dark.

It was all too apparent to Jesse, and the room felt like more of a tomb than ever before, and there were two dead men locked inside.

Jesse almost stroked Gabriel's slackened face, but then he thought better of it, flinching back. His brow furrowed together, as the weight of it all hit him all over again.

Gabriel was alive. He was alive and he was here. He was both those things and while McCree had thought he'd lost him to the darkness, to Talon, that Gabriel had gone mad and become a turncoat all on his own, the truth was far more complicated than that.

And Jesse had only ever wanted the truth. He'd only ever searched for answers, and while he'd sunk into some kind of depression thinking the answer he'd spent years looking for would only bring him additional grief… instead, he now had something new to fight for. There was a new answer to seek.

There was still justice that needed to be dispensed, and a bullet with a new name on it.

His hand moved up Gabriel's form, and caressed the crown of his head, rubbing his temple with circular motions of his thumb.

A moment later, Gabriel's face swirled back into focus, and red eyes opened.

The form stuck this time, as Gabriel solidified fully- though it wasn't who he used to be. This time, it was the man under the mask, the extra eyes closing and merging into his face as he assumed full control. Red eyes focused on Jesse, and the partially exposed bone shifted as Gabriel moved his jaw, taking in the scene.

"Jesse," Gabriel's voice was raspy, raspier than it was in Jesse's memories. It was vaguely shocked, but he schooled his expression carefully. It rocked through Jesse's being, his heart threatening to burst.

"Hey Gabe." Jesse answered back, nodding his head. He removed his hand, and stepped back, the electricity in the room too much for Jesse, his heart aching too strongly. Gabriel's gaze flickered upwards, as though he was about to protest the removal, but nothing left his lips.

Jesse backed away fully, and stared sorrowfully at Gabriel.

"You're alive." Gabriel murmured. "I…I always knew, that you had to have survived." He slowly sat up, holding his head and flinching a bit.

"I survived." Jesse echoed, flopping down onto his cot, sitting with his hands falling between his legs. "You were right."

Gabriel got to his feet, coat reforming around him, the hood staying down as red eyes pierced through him, squinting, mouth just shy of a scowl. If Jesse had been a lesser man, he would have had to avert his gaze. But instead, he lifted his chin and met Gabriel's contemplating expression with his own open one.

Jesse had nothing to hide anymore, especially not from Gabriel.

"How'd I get here, McCree?" Gabriel asked first, putting on his commander face in an attempt to force answers from McCree.

He quirked an eyebrow, leaning back as he stared upwards, "Knock that off, Gabe." Jesse waved a hand lazily. "Truth be told, I was gonna leave you in the city, you were very agitated about the idea, so we wrote you down where I'd be n' my name, and put it in your pocket. Then you rip out somethin' from your own arm, throw it to the side, and come after us. And Gabe? Y'don't have to go there, certainly not with me. I got nothin' to hide." He gestured to the get up. "Unlike someone here. And…well, truth be told, you walked here." Jesse murmured.

Gabriel did a full-bodied flinch after he looked down to his hands and saw his taloned gloves and the reaper get up. Jesse pulled the mask out from his pockets, and laid it flat on the bed next to him, rubbing the crack in it.

Gabriel swallowed, and sat back down, opposite to Jesse, the empty space of the tomb separating them.

"How'd you survive?" Gabriel asked next, and Jesse clasped his hands together, heart aching at the rawness in Gabe's voice, like he was already hoarse from years of crying, the question that had gone unanswered for so damn long finally having the truth available to be known.

"I don't know." Jesse said honestly, shifting his neck side to side before he lifted up the eye patch, Gabriel eagerly looking before having to avert his gaze.

"I looked, I searched for  _months_ , Jesse. But I never found a trace of you." Gabriel sneered into his hands, brow furrowing as dark smoke poured from his lips and seethed out of his form.

"A bullet in the brain does tend to do things to a person, Gabe." Jesse reminded, casually. "Couldn't even remember my own name at first. I woke up in a panicked flurry beggin' for the staff to keep me out of records."

It clicked for Gabriel in a way it hadn't for any of the others. "Blackwatch protocol." He derisively grumbled, putting a hand to his chin and tapping his cheek with his forefinger. "You were in an unknown situation, in a hospital, and you did what we'd drilled into you. Made sure no one would know where you were."

Jesse nodded, breathing out a long sigh. "Except I couldn't remember what the fuck came after that, not for a long while. I was pretty sure, at first, that I'd only done it outta fear for the person who shot me, but I remembered in a rush after collecting the things they'd found me with, there was a second bit of protocol. One I couldn't do regardless, but by that point it'd been months."

"You could have called." Gabriel softly murmured.

McCree shifted. "I'd changed, Gabe. Second that bullet hit me, second I didn't take the shot and closed it for you…I changed. I couldn't go back."

"We would have wanted you back regardless."

"My arm was paralyzed, and I still can't deadeye reliably." Jesse disagreed sharply. "And that last bit's still true. I replaced my arm, I, I outlived my ability to be useful to Blackwatch, and as your right hand man I wasn't fit. That took time to come to grips with, and I've yet to…fully accept all the changes. He faltered, before continuing. "Hell. I went to see Ashe rather than address it."

"Doesn't she have a death wish for you?" Gabriel asked, confused.

"Maybe I was hoping she'd act on it." Jesse muttered. "I was alone, in a world without you. I'd gone back to…some extent. After Zurich," he quickly explained before Gabriel jumped to conclusions. "And I hadn't meant to. Angela found me at your graveside and thought I was Moira."

Gabriel looked him up and down, bewildered, but gestured with a roll of his wrist for him to continue.

"…Everyone else, Gabe. They've moved on. Even the two idiots here in Cairo." He muttered, "As much as one might disagree with calling it that. They've got purpose. Drive. I was listless, for a while. I didn't wanna kill myself, and I certainly didn't want Talon to have the satisfaction, but…she woulda at least gotten some closure off me. It was more than I had given you."

Gabriel ran a hand over his face, taking all that in.

Softly, after a moment, Gabriel continued. "I wanted you back. I searched for you. Every second I could. I wouldn't have cared about the arm, or the eye. I needed you, Jesse. All of you, not just those aspects of you on the field."

Jesse felt something tighten in his throat.

"I know." Jesse murmured. "Hell, Gabe, I spent the last seconds of what I thought was gonna be my life trying to warn you about who it was on the other side of the sniper scope."

Gabriel closed his eyes, bowing his head.

That thing in his chest jumped into his throat.

He'd wondered, but never had gotten confirmation. "But you'd known about who was on the other side of that. You knew she'd be there."

The man before him swallowed, before he tried to defend himself, hands shaking as they clasped together, "It wasn't that cut and dry, Jesse." Gabriel pleaded with him.

He looked to Gabriel, expression darkening. "And I now know that…if it had come out that I  _hadn't_  died in Blackwatch… well. Someone woulda rectified that real quick."

Gabriel's expression faltered and then fell, becoming stricken.

"They wanted me dead Gabe. They were the ones that killed me. Even if I had gone back to you…I'm more useful dead." He hollowly laid it out for him. "It'd be easy for them to tell you I never had survived in the first place. They can alter your memory."

"Jesse," Gabriel struggled, eyes becoming watery. Jesse put up a hand.

"We fought earlier. For real." Jesse revealed, finally. "You can't even remember it. You don't remember what you said to me, or what I said to you. They made you think I was dead again. And they coulda done that if I'd shown my ugly mug to anyone in Talon."

He let that sit for a while, before deciding it was past time for the truth.

"Including you." He said, pushing. Gabriel choked, dropping his chin as he recoiled from that like it was an attack. "How long, Gabe?"

"It wasn't supposed to be like this." Gabriel weakly defended himself, hands covering his face like it'd protect him from Jesse's incoming judgment, the hammer coming down for justice.

"Reaper's been an issue for decades. Blackwatch tried to deal with him, never could. Hell, there wasn't ever a pattern to him. Not even Gérard put it together that he was Talon."

"I wasn't Talon then." Gabriel rejected, shaking his head. "I was always Reaper, but I only joined Talon after," He suddenly came to a stop, and Jesse blinked, surprised.

"When did you join?" Jesse demanded, coldly.

Gabriel's lips moved for a moment, before he yielded under Jesse's hard stare. "I don't remember." He said, quietly, seemingly horrified. "Jesse- I'm not, I'm  _not_ lying- I can't remember when I joined." He put a hand to his head, wincing.

"So…put it on a timeline. Were you in Talon before Venice?"

Gabriel shook his head strongly. "No, I wasn't."

"Amélie's kidnapping?"

"Definitely not."

"Gerard's death."

"No."

Jesse bit his lip, feeling like a piece of shit interrogating Gabriel when the man looked about ready to have a panic attack.

"Your divorce." Gabriel sucked in a breath at the reminder, and shook his head after a long moment of thinking.

"…Before we got together."

"I don't…I don't think so."

"… What about during what all happened in London with Null Sector?"

"…I don't know." Gabriel said, uncomfortably uncertain. "I think…I think maybe, we'd been approached sometime after Gérard's death."

"We?"

"They got me through Moira." Gabriel recalled that fact with a surety that seemed to calm him down, body relaxing. "She'd… she'd needed a bodyguard." He recalled absently. "They knew who I was, but…I was trapped, in what felt like an out of body experience."

"Did Moira do that to you?" Jesse felt hatred for the woman solidify in his gut. "Is she to blame for  _all_  of this?"

Gabriel shook his head again.

"No." Gabriel denied, quiet but firm. "Moira accepted the position because…" He faltered, and Jesse waited before nodding.

"Because…?"

"…Because I was sick. She took the money because we'd been shut down. I was…I was dying." Gabriel looked to Jesse, in shame. "I was dying and Moira was panicking that we were running out of options. And Talon approached her with work…and we accepted."

He'd about to say something smart, but the air was sucked out of his lungs when Gabriel said that he'd been dying.

"… You never told me anything about dying."

"I had it under control." Gabriel murmured, shrinking.

"Obviously not?" Jesse pointed out, anger growing.

Gabriel matched that. "Like you were better." He spat back, defensive. "You just kept telling me you had the sniper under control- disobeying  _direct_  orders- and then you were  _shot_! If you had just listened!"

"You knew who the sniper was! You  _knew_  that I wasn't gonna be able to because you were a  _double agent_!"

"That wasn't how it was supposed to be, Jesse." Gabriel swore, before drawing back, going quiet. He put a hand to his forehead, rubbing it as he winced.

Jesse watched, helpless, as Gabriel looked at him, turning pale. "It, I wasn't ever supposed to…be on their side." He recalled, eyes drooping as his hands fell down. "Moira and I, we were just going to use Talon for money, so that…I would live and Blackwatch could keep running. And then we'd bust the whole damn organization wide open. An explosion, if need be. I'd be able to live. We'd finally get even with the bastards for Rome. Their headquarters is there too, you know. How funny 's that."

The idea was in Jesse's head the moment he mentioned the explosion.

Talon had such a flair for irony.

Gabriel wobbled, and Jesse got up, stumbling in the low light to sit with him and provide support.

Jesse looked to Gabriel, and his mouth moved helplessly before he went for just… laying all of this out there for them both. "I did say I didn't think it was Jack and Ana that did this to you." He murmured, and it was like a bell had rung in Gabriel's head, the man sitting up straight and clutching his temple.

" _Fuck._ " He hissed. "We fought earlier. We fought earlier and I couldn't remember it. I couldn't remember any of it."

"They drugged you and fucked with your memory, thought I mentioned somethin along those lines." Jesse dryly explained. "It had nothin' to do with me."

"It did have something to do with you." Gabriel darkly said. "You being back. They didn't like that."

"Like I said. More useful dead than not." His hands hovered over Gabriel's form, before they dropped back to his sides. He stood straight again, and backed off, turning to go sit back down.

"I tried to hurt you." Gabriel said, more subdued. Jesse stopped in his footsteps. "I said you abandoned me."

"You did." Jesse recalled. "The fight…it didn't feel that serious to me." He alleviated some guilt; glancing at him over his shoulder, before taking another step back to his bed. "More like a spar. Don't worry about it. That didn't hurt me."

"You said that you love me." The voice was somehow even softer, more raw.

Jesse froze, for a long moment, and he looked down at his hands, before breathing out a hurt sigh, looking towards the darkened ceiling like it'd be able to show him the stars, or the answers.

"I did." He agreed, equally as subdued.

Things were quiet for a long time, and so Jesse lay back down in his bed, exhaustion settling in his bones.

Gabriel stared at him in the darkness.

"I could leave."

Jesse closed his eyes.

"You could."

"I could tell Talon where you are. Return to them."

"I wouldn't be able to stop you."

Gabriel sat there for a long time, Jesse starting to doze off, knowing that he'd said his piece. This part would be Gabriel's choice.

"… Do you want me here?" Gabriel asked, breaking the silence.

Jesse didn't open his eyes, heart beating hard at the question. He didn't yet dare himself to hope.

"Yeah." He murmured, voice hoarse from sleepiness or how he had resisted the urge to give into grief. "I do."

He heard the cot creak from across the room, and heard footsteps pad over.

"Can I…?" He asked, quiet, soft. "I won't be there for long, I just…I need to touch you."

Jesse gave a silent nod, rolling over, and he felt the cot move as Gabriel settled in, and then pressed himself against Jesse's front. He was far warmer than he'd ever been, and for the moment, Gabriel played little spoon, burying his head into the crook of Jesse's neck.

Somehow he was finally able to fall asleep easily for the first time in years, like he'd never realized how much being all alone had weighed down on his soul.

XXXXX

Morning came slowly- he usually needed a minute these days, getting older- and it smelled like Gabriel. He would have hurt at the thought, until he felt the familiar weight against his chest and the soft noise of breathing coming from against his front.

He looked down, and found Gabriel latched onto him like an octopus, his frown lines sunken into his face, the dark circles under his eyes telling. He looked younger in his sleep, but somehow just as worried as when he was awake. It was quite the picture, really.

Jesse slowly rubbed the crown of Gabriel's head, and the face twitched, the edges of it moving unsettlingly.

It all happened before Jesse quite understood it.

He was shoved out of bed roughly and landed across the room, yelping as he caught himself a bit too late in a very messy roll, marks from talons that had poked and cut him open bleeding.

The guns reformed in Gabriel's hands, and Jesse stared down the ends of them for a heartbeat before he threw himself to the side, cursing loudly as the gun in his face fired off.

"Gabriel!  _What_  the fucking  _hell_!" He shouted, drawing peacekeeper as he got to his feet and aimed it directly at the mask that had reformed over the face.

Red eyes stared at him, empty and horrifying. Monstrous.

They had each other in a stand off, Jesse's teeth clenched tight as his heart pounded, not wanting to die here. Reaper- not Gabriel, as there was no warmth, no familiarity behind the mask- sized him up like a meal, and they were both trapped in the same room.

The moment drew out, before the guns dropped, and Gabriel staggered back.

"Jesse." He choked out, putting his hands to the mask, ripping it off his face and throwing it against the wall. "Oh my god, Jesse," Jesse didn't move at first, watching as Gabriel backed himself into the wall. "I almost shot you, oh fuck." He breathed that out, terrified and hyperventilating.

Jesse had no idea what to say, what to do, and he just gaped at Gabriel, at how the situation had gone from sweet to life threatening to pitiful at the drop of a hat, and Gabriel looked up at him, big tears dripping as his face fell to pieces. He wrapped his arms around himself as he hyperventilated, before he just shook his head and turned to smoke. Jesse's heart caught in his chest, the thought of Gabriel running now killing him, before he saw what was left behind shove itself into a wall and stay there.

The air, which had gotten so tense, finally went still again. Jesse breathed, shuddering as he lowered peacekeeper, putting her away.

He walked back over to his cot, and slid down into it, chin lifted up and just taking the moment to breath.

Ana's mocking voice suddenly hit him loud and clear, for his stupid idea to  _talk sense into the homicidal murderer._ He laughed lowly, to himself, lowering his head to whack himself in the face with the side of his right hand. The hand went to the side of his head, and his thumb rubbed the circle under his eyepatch as his middle finger massaged his remaining eye.

He sucked in a long breath, and then breathed it out in another laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

What the hell was he doing?

The room had it's stale air sucked out of it as the door was unsealed, and Jesse was shot through the middle with the realization that the world didn't run on his desires, and sometimes actively to spite them these days.

Ana poked her head in, and saw Jesse, realizing that he was somewhat alone and crying.

"Is everything alright?" She asked, considerately enough to not directly broach the subject. McCree nodded, and she walked in.

"Jack didn't like the idea of sticking around." Ana dryly said, carrying three cups of tea with her, shocking him as she placed the third one down on the floor. "Any news on our other house guest?"

"He's still here." Jesse acknowledged, delayed as he swallowed the thick feeling in his neck. He turned to the wall, watching as smoke poured out harder in a quiver, but ultimately didn't move beyond that.

Ana followed his gaze to the wall, and snorted, sipping her tea. She offered Jesse one that he actually took, taking a sip with only a brief curl of his lip. At least it was caffeine.

"I decided not to mention the fact he was here to Jack, and from the look of my computer this morning, that was the right decision. It looks to me like he is planning on tracking him down."

"Did you not know what he was planning?" Jesse asked, raising an eyebrow as he took another sip of the tea. "Thought y'all were working together."

"We were." Ana agreed, quiet, "But we had a minor disagreement once we arrived here. I saw the state that Hakim had put this city in…and put my foot down. I told Jack that I would stake out the palace; figure things out and take down my target. But Gabriel showed up and threw that out the window." She rubbed her pretty porcelain cup thoughtfully.

"Mmm." Jesse recalled how Jack had been separated from Ana at the gates. "How long had you been staking it out?"

"A few days. He originally only agreed because we both knew that Hakim was working with Talon…but while I was here, I saw just how bad things were. How tight a stranglehold he has on Cairo. Food is scarce on the shelves, and many are starving. Most no longer have any access to medical care. The police and the government have turned a blind eye to it all, my thought is that they've been paid off by him."

"You want to stay and help." Jesse murmured, soft, hearing the regrets of a lifetime embedded in her.

"Of course I do." She squeezed her cup tight in his hands. "My daughter is here. I grew up here; this is my home. And I did this. We did this. We should fix it."

"We did everything we could, Ana." Jesse reminded her. "And we're not the only ones here. Fareeha's here, she's fighting the good fight. She was raised to be able to."

"Mmm." Ana hummed, and Jesse let that lie. He lowered his gaze, and rubbed his face again.

"So, he's tracking a man that's right here." He changed the subject, and Ana took a deep breath before she continued.

"He never thinks things through. Stubborn idiot. Didn't even ask about where you were before he ran off." She derided, grateful for the new topic. "I don't know where he's getting his information from, but I have my suspicions, given that there was a message for me at the bottom of the screen that I should be lucky he doesn't ask the obvious question."

"Sombra." Jesse realized, grumbling.

"He looked up information about his injuries as well." Ana avoided thinking about that, rubbing her mug with her thumb as she glanced to the wall. "That damned scientist."

"Don't have to tell me twice." He nodded. "She's in Talon now too. Gabe told me they approached her, and that's how he got started."

"He talked?" Ana asked, interested.

Jesse nodded, setting down the empty mug on the floor. "Also woke up to try and kill me, but last night, at least, he was in a fairly decent mood." He took his robot hand and lowered the collar of his shirt, showing off the cuts and blood.

She hissed at that in sympathy, wincing. "Are you alright?"

"They ain't that deep. Just advising you not to mess with him. He didn't shoot me, and shoved himself in there real deep after a moment's panic at the idea of doin' so…but he ain't right in the head."

"If you have a moment, I'd like your opinion on what he was looking at. The web on the computer was always more of Gabriel's arena, not ours. Too messy, too many sides that are all hopelessly tangled. None of it actually gives me any new information about Reaper."

"How are y'all not on the same page?" Jesse asked, standing up, grabbing his mug. "Haven't you two been traveling together for the last 6 years?"

Ana nodded with a sigh, standing up to walk over and place the extra cup of tea by the hole in the wall. "The explosion changed the two of us, Jesse. We still have each other's backs…we still care greatly about the other. But there's been a distance that's never been fixed. Even this…Jack would have never made this sort of argument before." Her hand hovered over the blackness, before she thought better of it and stepped away.

Jesse headed outside first, into the early morning light, and Ana followed him, the two of them walking into Ana and Jack's headquarters, the place well lived in. Ana hadn't been kidding when she'd mentioned that Jack had been up looking for information on Gabriel. The screen was absolutely littered with it.

He sat down in the chair, prepared to do a full dossier on whatever the hell Jack had been looking at from Sombra, while Ana stared at something on the wall, at some sort of cat mask.

He cracked his knuckles, and focused on the matter at hand.

He was already tired of old ghosts in masks, didn't need to think about Ana taking on a new one.

XXXXX

Hours later, McCree leaned back in his chair, and Ana came back inside.

"Finished." He told her, as Ana handed over a bag of takeout food.

"Anything of note?" She asked, curious as she peered over his shoulder, eyeing his work.

"Nothin' obvious about Talon, in spite of the fact that all of them are related to them. I get the feeling that Sombra was usin' Jack to get his opinion on her map. This feels like it's got her fingerprints all over it." Jesse assessed broadly. "There were a few small facts I found, but it didn't seem like the thing Jack would suss out. This was always more Gabe's world. My world." He rubbed his neck.

"Have you checked on him?" Ana asked, quiet. Obviously she agreed with him about how this had been Gabe's territory, Gabe's way of looking at the world, but didn't comment on it.

No matter what it had been, it wasn't Gabe's world anymore. He'd reverted into some serious black and white, with me or against me thinking.

That had always been Jack's view of the world; one where every problem had two options, one good and one bad- and a clear decision to be made to solve it.

How fuckin' bizarre it was to see Jack filling Gabe's shoes, and Gabriel trapped in Jack's, with Jesse able to sit on the sidelines and see what had become of them both.

"Jesse?" Ana prompted, bringing him out of his reverie.

He shook his head. "Mm. Sorry, got caught in my thoughts. I've not gone to see him yet. I'll be back." He murmured, heading back to his room, rolling his shoulder to work out the crick in his neck from staring at the screen for a few hours.

The only difference in the side room was that the air was fresh now. He breathed it in, and flicked on the lights he'd not even realized that Ana had turned off.

The cup of tea was left untouched, and black smoke poured out of the hole continuously.

Jesse called in, quiet. "Gabe?" He approached the black smoke, and sat down with him. If it wasn't just smoke, Jesse woulda said that it quivered, but he couldn't quite make it out.

He leaned himself against the wall, and sighed. He'd learned a lot, the past few days, and he wasn't sure what to make of all of it. The smoke quivered again, this time the motion was unmistakable, and Jesse could tell that Gabriel felt the same about the matter.

In spite of everything telling him not to, he stuck his hand into the hole, letting the black smoke envelop it.

He wasn't sure if he imagined it, but he certainly felt like something- someone- grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Jesse tilted his head into the wall, closing his eyes as he squeezed it back.

XXXXX

McCree wasn't quite sure when he'd dozed off, but he woke up with a pile of smoke in his lap, his hand having been pulled back in and likely pulling Gabriel with him. For a second, he wondered what had woken him up, before a knock came.

"McCree?" Jack called, and Jesse cursed lowly, jolting upright. The ball of smoke on his lap lazily moved, but it wasn't that raw panic from earlier, for some reason or another. Perhaps he'd never actually slept, but instead of lashing out at Jack or vanishing in fear, he sank further into Jesse's serape.

Jack entered the room, mask off, brow furrowed as he looked around for Jesse.

Several things happened in the next moment.

He and Jack made eye contact, Jesse's expression undoubtedly like he'd been caught with his pants down.

Jack's eyes dropped, focusing on the black mass huddled in Jesse's lap.

Jesse moved preemptively to the side, barely missing it when Jack's whole body connected with the space Jesse vacated moments before. He rolled, holding Gabriel close as he cursed loudly as he climbed to his feet, jostling the pile of smoke in his grip.

"Jesus fucking  _Christ_  what the hell is it with you fucking two and attacking me!?" He asked, only partly rhetorically, holding Gabriel closer to him when the black mass shivered again.

"McCree, you know  _damn_  why I'm attacking you." Jack hissed, expression outraged at McCree's indignation. "Put him down. He's not your Gabriel. He's a terrorist and he brought down everything all of us worked for. He's a traitor."

"I fuckin'  _know_  that Jack!" Jesse shouted as he draped the serape over Gabriel to protect the drooping man. "Nobody knows what he's done  _more_  than me. Better than me. Don't you fuckin'  _dare_  speak for me, though, 'cause this damn situation is a helluva lot more complicated than you're thinking it is."

"Jesse, stop defending him!" Jack met him in the middle as he howled, the only thing stopping Jack's far stronger self from overpowering Jesse being the robotic arm Jesse used to catch him by his chest.

"I ain't defending what he's done!" Jesse denied, arching his back as Jacks hands went to his face, his shoulders, looking for some kind of weakness, until he rolled to the side, throwing Jack off him and hopping to his feet, running towards the door. "Just askin' you to fuckin'  _listen to me_  for once in your goddamned life!" His twang became more pronounced the worse things got, as he got more stressed.

In hindsight, it'd been stupid to try to run. Jack was always lightning fast, even faster than Gabe. He didn't even have enough time to register he'd been hit before he'd been tackled to the floor, all the air coming out of his stomach as Jack grabbed him by the throat and  _squeezed_.

"Let him  _go_." The air hissed around him, and the black mass swirled out from Jesse's hold on top of him, as the angry ghost of Gabriel Reyes, mask forgotten, shoved Jack off Jesse before becoming fully solid above both their toppled forms.

Jesse flopped to his side as Jack scrabbled to his feet, instantly more wary of this situation than when he'd been fighting Jesse. More respectful of the fact his opponent could definitely best him without ever picking up a gun.

" _Asshole_ ," McCree wheezed, chest aching as he sucked in breathes. " _Gabe_. Don't fight him."

Gabriel turned back to him, red eyes confused, clearly asking Jesse what the hell he was on about, as Jack wasn't gonna give either of them a choice as he lunged at Gabriel again with another vicious punch, the right hook sending him to the ground.

The man- distracted by Jesse- toppled to the floor, and Jack started to beat the living shit out of him.

"Morrison, stop this! He ain't fighting you back!" Jesse hoarsely pointed out, getting to his feet and trying to separate the two of them.

"McCree, this is long overdue." Jack ground out, pushing him back like he was nothin' but a kid in the way. His elbow reared back as he prepared to truly knock Gabe's lights out, and Jesse did what he knew he had to stop him, even if he guessed that this was  _really_  gonna hurt.

He threw himself in between him and Gabriel, and the punch was stopped before it hit.

"McCree." Jack sounded exasperated, sitting on top of them both, Gabriel dazed and Jesse out of breath.

"No." Jesse stubbornly denied. " _You're_  the one outta line here Morrison. Fuck you thinkin, choking  _me_? I ain't enhanced. Gabe wasn't engaging you 'til you made the situation dangerous. So shut the fuck up and listen to me, you goddamned stubborn ass bull in a china shop."

Gabriel coughed up blood beneath him, and McCree rolled over once the blows didn't come for another long moment. He tilted his chin down to look at Morrison, raising an eyebrow, before the man backed down, sitting up fully.

"Talk, McCree." He ordered, stiffly, as McCree finally was able to get up off Gabriel, and Gabriel melted right back down to smoke. McCree thoughtlessly pulled the ball against him, and Jack didn't even flinch.

"I'm still getting the full picture, alright? So don't jump down my throat if it doesn't make a whole lotta sense yet."

Morrison put up a hand, seeming suddenly exhausted. "Just…talk."

"Well, it started when Ana and I were called by some woman named Sombra who had information about Reaper, in exchange for information she wanted…" Jesse murmured, as the two of them settled into the floor, the fight having taken the stuffing out of both of them.

It wasn't an easy discussion for either of them. At first, Jack denied it all, but the trump card of Gabriel being deathly ill was revealed, and suddenly pieces started to fall into line. The two of them were able to jump off the other's thinking.

They were the two people who'd known Gabriel best; of course they'd be able to trace things backwards with a little information and the help of the other.

"So, let me just lay all this out so we are sure we have gotten this straight." Jack started.

Jesse nodded, expectant, and Jack began. "So, Gabriel gets sick, sometime around 10 years ago, and it's related to the SEP. He turns to some outside source for help, likely whatever fucked up party in government that was having him do his Reaper missions, as that wasn't Talon related but also definitely wasn't Blackwatch." Jack looked to him for confirmation, and Jesse nodded.

"Definitely never Blackwatch, but he told me outright that Reaper wasn't connected to Talon, meaning there was always someone else involved."

"Right." Jack nodded, before moving on. "The paper on a methodology similar to the SEP comes out, and Gabriel realizes he has a chance." He elaborates, and both of them grimace.

"Dr. O'Deorain." Jesse grumbled. "Moira. He hired her and never told me why, just did so and ordered me to keep it quiet."

"She's as fond of us as we're fond of her, and after Venice, around the time that Blackwatch has been shut down and there's no funding in that well, following Gabriel's divorce, she's approached by Talon operatives."

"If we're to believe how Gabe described her actions, yeah."

"Gabriel and her supposedly never plan to become attached to Talon, but instead want to use their money and then tear the organization apart from the inside out." Jack looked to him for approval, and Jesse nodded. "Which I think sounds like Talon found out about that plan, or Moira informed them of it directly at some point in the aftermath. We don't know when that is, but either way, it sounds like Talon likes irony, and turned his plan back around onto us."

Jesse nodded. "I agree; I made the same connection. He quite literally mentioned using an explosion to blow their Rome headquarters right open."

"But by this time, the mission to Poland has come around." Jack placed Jesse's files in the middle, and Jesse turned away. "Originally someone in Blackwatch made a dossier for Amélie Lacroix to shoot and kill Ana Amari, but following the last minute change, trying to make Blackwatch look better in the public eye, they put you in the line of fire."

"Gabe swears that, despite that he knew she was gonna be there, he had nothin' to do with the mission or it's sabotage."

"But we all knew there were ears inside the walls, and without Gérard, and with Gabriel compromised, there wasn't anyone that could root them out as fast as they planted themselves in."

Jack mimed shooting Jesse, and Jesse let out an overdramatic sigh. "You get shot. You were both his second in command and, ugh,  _relationship_ at the time of the incident. Gabriel, who was likely already being manipulated, gets those feelings of betrayal pinned back on us. Specifically, on me, as I was the one who reassigned the mission, and on Ana, as she was the one who was supposed to die."

Jesse nodded. "That's my thought, yeah."

"Talon then proceeds to finish manipulating him through…drugs and other mysterious processes you don't know of or even have confirmation they exist," Jack sarcastically ran through this bit, and Jesse rolled his eyes.

"You need to ask Ana how he was yesterday. I promise Jack, I ain't makin' this up."

"He's now brainwashed, and he unleashes his plan to destroy Talon on Overwatch instead, working alongside whatever double agents were inside our walls to kill Ana- who survived by the skin of her teeth, and myself. He fights me personally, scratches my face before the fire consumes him and I'm knocked out of the building."

They both went quiet, and looked down at the black ball of smoke.

"It's plausible." Jack admitted, and Jesse rolled his eyes.

"It's more than plausible, it's likely how things went down, give or take a few things for timing and flavor."

"It's  _a_  theory." Jack allowed, grumbling. "I saw your dossier, do you really think my contact was just using me?" He was slightly more sheepish about asking the second bit.

"Oh, for sure, 100%. She mainly wanted your opinion on the web." He leaned back, stroking the black ball. "She even left a hidden message for Ana."

Jack leaned back as well, putting all the papers back in place. "I'll have to have words with her then." He groused, peeved, and Jesse snorted, turning Gabriel over a few times in his hands before sighing.

"Unno how successful you're gonna be at that." He jibed on Jack, before settling with holding the ball tight again, the thing finally relaxing after so long being completely solidified into a stress ball. "She's kinda done her own thing. Contacts us rather than the other way around."

"Well, we have  _that_." Jack pointed to the black smoke, and it tensed again, making Jesse click his tongue in frustration.

"I just calmed him down, didja gotta go and do that?" He complained lowly, frustrated, stroking Gabriel again. "And she's the one who told us where he'd be. I doubt she's very attached to him."

Jack huffed, standing up with the new files he'd taken from McCree's things. "Alright, he can stay. For  _now_. One toe out of line and I finish things." He warned, stalking off, likely to go talk with Ana and check her version of yesterdays events.

"He's welcome to try," Gabriel hissed the moment Jack was out of earshot, and he reformed.

He was clearly bruised, but he didn't look any more bruised than Jesse- shocking, considering how badly Jack had been beating him. The wounds were healing, surrounded by black smoke, but Gabriel looked more like an animal caught in some sort of trap than a truly dangerous man. He certainly didn't have his guns out.

Neither of them spoke, before Gabriel sank into Jesse's arms. "Do you really think…that's how it happened?" He asked Jesse, bewildered. "It….it mirrors what I remember, but…so much of what I remember is colored with anger and pain and hatred."

"Mm." Jesse hummed, holding Gabriel there and letting him settle in. "It's only a hunch. But yeah. I think…I think Jack and I have…a decent understanding on what happened."

They went quiet, and Gabriel laid his head against him. "I can't remember it. It all just…is filtered through anger. When Jack came in, I wanted to kill him for hurting you but that didn't make any sense. I'd hurt you this morning. I wanted to hurt Ana because you were dead but you aren't dead."

"What are you going to do then?" He asked, and Gabriel was quiet for a long minute.

"I want my revenge." Gabriel said, quiet, after debating internally. "But I don't know what that even looks like anymore."

Jesse rubbed Gabriel's shoulders, feeling the tense muscles relax underneath his fingers.

"Do you still want me here, Jesse?" Gabriel asked, distant. "I heard what you said. You said no one knew better what I'd done. How far I'd gone. How can you still want me?" He asked, soft. "Especially after all you said."

Jesse leaned against the cot, relaxed on the floor with Gabriel.

"You know I do." He echoed Gabriel's earlier sentiment. "I wasn't kidding, when I told Reaper that, trying to desperately have you not be what I was seeing." He told Gabriel, quiet. "I've not been right since you died, Gabe."

Gabriel turned to him, seeming withdrawn, face elongated in sorrow as they met face to face. "Neither have I." He agreed, looking down. "I…Jesse, losing you, it destroyed me. I never wanted to do that, and then you were gone. This gaping hole in my life. I tried to do right by you but…look how all that turned out." He dipped his head, his eyes suspiciously wet.

"I saw." He cupped Gabriel by his chin. "I saw the graves, Gabe. I went through each of those letters, looking for yours."

"I refused to write one." He admitted, sighing. "I didn't want to talk to you like you were actually gone. I saw you enough in my dreams and when I thought I was dreaming that…maybe I could pretend, avoid the idea that you were gone."

"I wasn't able to do the same." He muttered. "I hadn't had the chance to see you in so long, I regretted all my choices that had brought me to your graveside." He rubbed Gabriel's cheek with his thumb, rubbing away a tear. "My drooping western star."

"Walt Whitman?" Gabriel gave a halfhearted smile, leaning into the touch. "You remembered my favorite poet."

"And you put fuckin' cowboy quotes on our graves." Jesse teased right back. "You sap."

"Shame that neither of us actually needed those." Gabriel admitted, quiet. "They weren't cheap."

"We'll come back to them. For now…Gabe. I never got to say it before, and I regretted it every single day since the day I thought I'd lost you for good. I won't count saying it before, so I'll say it now."

Gabriel beat him to the punch line with a kiss, fervent and soft and filling every nook and cranny in his being that had been hollowed out in the time since Jesse had been shot, since Gabriel had died, and since he'd discovered he'd been the Reaper.

"I love you, Jesse," Gabriel said when their lips broke apart, and Jesse wrapped the man tighter in a desperate hug, those words completing him in a way he'd long thought impossible.

He needed a minute to catch his breath, a minute that was filled with kisses and desperate touches and the reminder that the other was alive and with them and still felt as strongly as they did when they'd come apart.

But the second he was able to, he breathed life back into Gabriel with a heartfelt, "I love you too, Gabe."

XXXXX

"It wasn't easy, Fairy." Jesse smoked as he sat in a bar, drinking shitty whiskey with a phone up to his ear. " I can't lie and say that it was. There are still mornings where Gabriel lashes out in anger, there are nights where he argues with Jack and Ana and it goes nowhere and Gabriel sulks and Jack paces."

"I'm surprised they've not tried to kill each other more." Fareeha sighed, the sounds of the airport behind her. "The way you described the fight last week, I'm surprised Gabriel's still allowed in the apartment."

"Oh, it's definitely come close." He acknowledged. "Usually, I point out that they could really use me for this mission, and if they kick Gabe out- I'm going with him." Jesse swirled his whiskey in the bottom of his glass. "And if that fails I remind Ana that Jack instigated the fight. Gabe behaves, for the most part."

"It really is such an odd role reversal." Fareeha murmured, leaning back. "Ugh. I hate flying, Jesse."

"You sure do it a lot." He jibed, and Fareeha snorted.

"Not that kind." She reminded. "I love my rocket powered suit. This type of flying, though, this is awful. Can't I just be in Canada already?"

"Yanno, Overwatch tried making that kind of tech," He recalled, thoughtful.

"Really?" She asked, immediately perking up.

"Yeah. I unno about any future plans, bet you could ask Tracer how she thought experimental trials went."

The younger woman immediately deflated. "That was mean, Jesse." She shifted, the phone crackling in his hand. "I forgot that was the original intention of the slipstream program."

"Yeah, there were lots of Overwatch programs that have gotten some recent attention." He looked to the news, smiling as he saw a familiar face speaking to the news caster, updating about some situation in the Himalayas. Mei Ling Zhou had pulled herself out of death as well, and she'd made a good comeback. There'd been a brief time where he'd considered calling Angela and asking her to tell the monkey that he was on board…but that would require telling her where he'd been for the past several months, and that came at its own unique cost.

"Have you told anyone else about the corpse party you've got going on?" Fareeha asked when he'd been quiet for a bit, and Jesse snorted.

"Nah." He waved a hand. "Not even Angie, yet. Ain't sure how to broach the subject with her. I'm just sad you won't get the chance to come over."

Fareeha's voice was a bit frosty. "I made these plans with my father several months ago. My mother didn't inform me she was alive until after that fact."

He winced. "Right. Right…well. Maybe next year. " He swirled the glass around again, watching as the now lonely ice cube trailed around the bottom rim. "I have a good feeling about that."

"Oh, they're calling for boarding." She realized, getting up and stretching, voice distant before she jostled the phone back into place. "I'll talk to you later, Jesse, don't stay up for me- Sam's picking me up at the airport and we're going to have dinner."

"Talk to you later, Fairy." He murmured, texting Reinhardt a quick Merry Christmas and even shooting Angela a small Happy Hanukkah message, the two holidays basically overlapping that yet from what he understood.

He'd sent her a letter, along with Genji's, in the mail weeks ago, but there was no sureness that either of them would get the letters before the holidays had come and gone.

Angela's message didn't go through, and Jesse sighed as he sat there in the bar.

They were currently staking out Hakim's business, and things had gone very quiet. They were very close to the day they'd go in and take it all down, but that didn't mean there wasn't work still to do. He could hardly have a long call to Fareeha in the same room as Ana, who the younger had yet to fully forgive for her actions and decisions.

Gabriel was quietly resting against him, sleeping off one of Ana's teas in Jesse's serape, giving Jack the space he sometimes needed when they were all living in such close quarters. Did it bother Jesse a bit that the two were sometimes still at each others throat? Of course. Could he tell Jack to calm down and get with the times? No, not unless he really wanted a fight on his hands.

Sombra had been rather quiet, to Jack's chagrin and Jesse's unease. Talon had poked about a fair bit to search for Gabriel, but no one had shown up at the necropolis or in their meager apartment that staked out the city over Hakim's latest headquarters.

Small blessings, Jesse thought quietly, rubbing the black smoke back into his bag.

The bar had a few of Hakim's grunts skulking about, and Jesse couldn't help but listen in to them complain about the difficulties completing their work recently thanks to the new threat of Bastet.

He was a bit surprised about Ana's change in heart about her old identity as Shrike, following Soldier: 76 around, and a bit more surprised that she'd taken on the façade of the goddess Bastet. That had been a very long phone call with Fareeha, Gabriel drawling in the background about how it was yet another furry costume, which had caused Fareeha to choke, partly in shock at hearing Gabriel, partly to stifle her laughter.

He placed the container with Echo's AI chip on the counter, eying it thoughtfully. He'd meant to ask Fareeha to see about looking for her chassis, but hadn't got around it.

He pocketed it again, closing his eyes as he turned it over and over in his hand. Recall needed her, needed the secretive A-team that were all trapped here fighting this, but even once they were finished, he was pretty convinced they were gonna stay under the radar.

That wasn't right. They had information that would be vital for the kids, but showing up with the amount of information he had, the specifics he wanted to tell them…well. It'd invite questions that none of the ghosts wanted to answer.

At least, not yet. Ana was slowly working towards bringing Jack and Gabriel to Angela, but that was the one thing both men actually agreed on. A rare thing these days, but Jesse wouldn't press them to agree with each other as long as they didn't go trying to kill each other again.

He stared at the bottom of his empty cup, and figured he'd already tested his luck drinking hard liquor in a club with the scrupulous types looking for a quick buck in reward money.

But that was all stopped when the crowd cleared, and a small figure pushed through.

The grunts left the room, and Jesse suddenly recognized the small woman before him.

"Sombra." He lifted his empty glass at her, as she snickered, sauntering towards him and sitting next to him.

"You know, it's technically illegal to drink here, McCree." She commented, ordering a beer in the next breath.

"The police look away easily enough." He smoothly reminded. "And it's not like I ain't practiced at getting away from them." The second she had her beer in hand, the barkeep turned tail towards the door, and McCree's jaw worked, thinking about what was going on here. "Looks like you've got a reputation."

"Hakim's goons know well enough not to bother me." She shrugged, sipping her beer. "I might have picked up a reputation for fucking with those who don't."

"Oh, you've got a reputation for fucking with people alright."

"You should be more grateful, McCree," She feigned hurt, putting a hand over her chest, while her other touched the black smoke leaking out of her bag. "I did you a  _very_  big favor, letting you keep that absolute goldmine."

McCree pulled him closer, and she just laughed. "Don't worry, I wouldn't mess with him now. The fact he's not caused any issues just tells me you've got him taken care of."

"Why are you here?" He got straight to the point, and she gave a lazy grin.

"I was bought out. A rich buyer wanted to track you down." Sombra sipped her beer, and gestured someone in.

McCree's jaw dropped as another familiar face dipped into the bar, scowling about.

"I'll leave you to it." Sombra finished her drink in a gulp, and waved at McCree. "Don't worry, I'll be in touch. You've done a good job at getting that one out of Talon…I'll have to keep you in mind if I have to call in a favor." She hummed thoughtfully.

She walked to the door, and Ashe headed in, seeming…almost uncertain, before she paused.

"Right…one more thing. A, hm,  _gift_ , if you will, for producing such a nice dossier for me." She said, handing him an envelope.

She dipped her head and headed out, before Jesse could ask any questions on how she'd hacked into the computer and found his work, before he sighed, realizing that she'd undoubtedly had access to it from the moment 76 had used it.

Ashe and him looked to the hole she vacated, and then to each other.

"You actually came." He said, shocked as he pocketed the envelope for another time.

"I had time to consider your words, and I thought on them a long time. And I decided, if anyone was gonna kill you, it'd be me." She stubbornly said, shaking her head. "Talon already almost took that from me, and did so while they were trying to put me under their reign of control. And that's completely out of the question." She squeezed her hand, before she turned to him.

"So you're coming along for the ride." McCree raised an eyebrow.

"You got that right." She folded her arms. "And I'm ready to start shootin' heads in."

"Oh, you and 76 are gonna get along  _swimmingly_ ," He grumbled, rubbing his forehead, already envisioning the absolutely chaotic energy between an enraged Ashe, and 76, in his usual bad mood.

He stood, and gestured for her to follow, figuring the extra help wouldn't go amiss. As much as he knew she could become impulsive, she was good at what she did and typically far more level headed. There were really few things that could rile her up as good as McCree, but with how things would be- in close quarters- Jesse was already deeply concerned.

"We've got a lot of work ahead of us." He admitted. "But I'm glad I got another familiar face on my side, Ashe." He extended a hand to hers, and she squeezed it back, nodding in a silent truce.

"Deadlock always doles out what folks are due." Ashe agreed, the two of them walking out side by side.

XXXXX

It was surprisingly easy to get Ana and 76 on board with the idea of a new person in their midst, especially considering her reputation. Perhaps it was the fact that an extra body wouldn't go amiss in their fight against Talon.

What was left in their envelope made Gabriel simmer in renewed betrayal, took the breath from Ana, and finally moved Jack's opinion on seeking out the others. There was finally evidence that they were looking for, and it meant that….after their mission here was finished, they'd be off to see many old friends.

But they had this mission to finish, and Jesse was ready to stop sitting on his hands, stop living in the past, and move forward.

All the pieces were in place.

Over the city, in her proper place, Ana sat in her sniper's perch. The black and gold mask that she wore bore the image of the Goddess, Bastet. McCree watched from his own perch, a vulture circling their prey as he wandered below.

He watched the soldier stand behind the goddess, red mask glowing lowly in the dimly lit night around them; the glow of the city all there was to define his outline to McCree.

The shadows curled around him, and Jesse stroked what was tangible as they brushed past him and waited patiently for their cue to descend.

"He's approachin' now." The viper purred below, hidden away in the brush and buildings and sand. "Doesn't know the storm comin' to him, does he?"

"He does know, Ashe." Ana disagreed, firm. "He's nervous, he has made careless mistakes in the past weeks. We've drawn this game out long enough. He just has nowhere else to run, as we've flushed him out like the rat he is."

Soldier grunted, putting his heavy pulse rife over his shoulder. "Time to play exterminator, then."

"You know, old man, that's cheesy, even for me." Jesse called him out playfully.

"Move in." Ana cut in before an argument could start, jumping down from her perch, Jack helping her cross the gap gracefully.

From his own perch, he watched as the sudden noise and movement disturbed Hakim, and the man turned around, paranoid, sweating visibly in the glow of the moonlight.

Gabriel solidified beside Jesse, his face still consumed by shadows. "Are we sure we're not going to kill him?" He asked Jesse, voice a low growl as he eyed up their prey. "I could use the top off."

"Remember, everyone else is yours, Gabriel," Ana reminded sternly, "But we need Hakim alive, he needs to answer to the Egyptian people himself."

Gabriel grumbled, his teeth showing bone as he settled back into the smoke, Jesse rubbing his back reassuringly as he poured out the side of the building Jesse hid in, and vanished into the shadows to assume his position.

Ana dropped down into the path of the man, so that right as he turned around she was before him, standing at full height- the goddess mask and persona all seeing and obstructing his way forward.

Judgment time.

The man fell over in his surprise, putting a hand up as he said something that McCree couldn't quite make out. Ana stood impassively as he crawled away, and climbed desperately to his feet again, obviously weighing his options.

Instead of trying to press past her, he raced up the staircase, and McCree blocked off the first entrance as Ana maneuvered upwards as well, jumping up the old buildings and using the wood to grip onto as Hakim kept running, his panic audible in his heavy breathing.

McCree calmly followed, knowing that he would be surrounded once he got to the top.

"Reaper!" Hakim's voice was loud and clear in the night air now. "Reaper, thank god you're here- you  _must_  inform Talon that my operation isn't failing- it was just as I thought- I was being sabota-."

" _Shhhhh_ …." Gabriel hushed him, before chuckling darkly, putting a clawed blackened finger to Hakim's lips. McCree entered the same doorway Hakim had, and Hakim heard the spurs, making him look backwards and then back to Reaper's looming figure in the middle.

Hakim said something in Arabic, breathless, eyes widening tellingly, showing his growing fear and understanding. "Traitor." Hakim accused Reaper, in shuddering English.

"As though I ever worked for you." Reaper growled, the noise reverberating in the room.

Right then, Ana burst in through the window, rolling past them all to block the last exit.

Hakim backed away rapidly from her, his clumsy footsteps leading him to hit Jack's waiting chest, the man having risen to the widow to block it as well, his masked gaze almost as intimidating as the masked goddess before him or the angel of death between them.

Hakim was panicked as he rapidly switched his attention between the three masked figures- three terrifying old ghosts with deadly intent on him.

There was nowhere to go, and they were about to close in when suddenly, Hakim looked up, and jumped to the roof, using the hanging fabrics to bolster him to the skies.

Ana cursed in Arabic as Reaper just barely missed grabbing him, Jack sinking to the floor to help her meet him on the rooftops as Reaper returned to smoke, slithering up the walls and out into the night once more.

Jack and Jesse rushed through the door onto the rooftops below the main one, knowing they'd have to meet Ashe.

Hakim dropped from the rooftop past them, and Jesse watched as his rats below caught the man easily. Ana leapt to the ground with the grace of the cat she was taking the appearance of, and they watched for a moment as nothing happened. Hakim, surrounded by his mooks, met Ana's graceful landing on the very top of the beautiful, if sand-filled abandoned fountain in the center of them with more confident smirks. He had his forces, and they'd be able to overpower them…so they thought.

A gunshot rung out loudly, breaking the silence and forcing their attention off the graceful black goddess just long enough for her to get the jump on them. Ashe had already entered the fray, and McCree ran to the side rooms to have an easier landing, where Jack had no such qualms just jumping to the earth below, landing and squashing one of Hakim's mooks underfoot.

"McCree!" Ashe barked loudly, launching herself out from her hiding spot and throwing a round of dynamite into the fray to help clear out Ana's crowd. McCree answered her instantly with a sharp shot into the dynamite itself, covering his eyes with his serape while Ashe lowered her hat forward.

Bodies fell to the floor and black smoke rushed in as the fight broke out, Ana using her gun both in the traditional sense and more as a thrown weapon as well, while Jack gave her constant back up.

Jesse's gaze followed the black smoke as he jumped down more carefully, and realized quickly that Hakim had vanished in the chaos into the building, and went to give him back up, before watching Ana get bowled over by one of his suited underlings. McCree paused only long enough to flashbang one of the men coming to assist, while Jack shot the man clear with that damn preserved fish dish that stank from his gun.

Jesse turned up his nose in disgust, but nodded to Jack, while Ana started to get back to her feet.

All of a sudden, Gabriel's body was launched through the wall.

"Shit!" Ashe cursed loudly, shooting two rounds from the hip at the giant man that came after Reaper's body slammed into Jack and knocked him clear over. "What the hell is that?"

"Moira's handiwork, no doubt." McCree answered her through gritted teeth as he unloaded a full round into the behemoth that turned his attention their way.

It did absolutely nothing to stop him, and the monster punched the ground where Ana was standing. Ana did a back flip and managed to avoid the hit, while Ashe wasn't quite as lucky, having been hugging the side closer to the building. As the concrete was torn up, she was knocked from her feet into the remaining wall of the building, collapsing to the ground, viper knocked from her grip.

Ana, though, answered it by landing a dart in the neck of the goliath. The monster went down, unconscious. Jesse breathed out, glancing to where Gabriel had been thrown.

Suddenly, he realized Gabriel was still downed, only starting to get back up, but Jack had gotten back to his feet, and was running towards Hakim's body, while Ana's face seemed to pale. The words didn't get out of her mouth until Jack hit the man with a huge goddamned fish, straight from a market stall.

In an instant, Hakim snapped awake, eyes alight with fury and anger. A fist lashed out and punched Ana into the remaining wall that he'd come bursting out of with Gabriel acting as the wrecking ball.

Jesse yelped as the behemoth turned back to him and Jack, and he turned to Jack in outrage. "Are you  _fucking_  kidding me Morrison?" He shouted as he rolled backwards, firing a few more shots at the beast before realizing that it was doing less than nothing, even as blood dripped out of the bullet holes from Jesse and Ashe.

Two goons ran at him, and two others ran at Ana's fallen form, shaking as she tried to rise.

Gabriel breathed out heavy smoke as he faltered, while Hakim grabbed Jack by the leg and grabbed him like a rag doll. Jack, to his credit, didn't shout, obviously weighing his options about what the hell to do in the hands of a giant, with Gabriel obviously berating him by the way that Jack's brow furrowed in frustration and black smoke simmered off Gabriel's form.

Something in Ana snapped, and Jesse shot the two mooks coming at him with a deadeye as Ana jumped over the lunging bodies, making them hit the wall, headfirst.

She shot Jack, and it obviously did something to him, as the man was able to overpower the giant from an odd angle- held by his leg and yet able to get some kinda vantage in order to flip positions and toss Hakim clear over his shoulder and across the way, over the corpses of his fallen underlings and against the building. McCree yelped as he dodge rolled out of the way, assisted by a rush of smoke shoving him in the right direction.

Jesse wound up landing next to Ashe, getting back to her feet as Ana jumped over and slid, landing another sleep dart. Jack ran up screaming moments after the big man had fallen, and three of them- Ashe, Gabriel, and Jesse- prepared to tackle him, but Ana was quicker to it than them all.

A sleep dart landed in the middle of the man's head and the impact of it at close range knocked him ass backwards, flat as a board.

Ana sighed over his body, looking to Gabriel in exasperation, the man huffing black smoke tellingly in irritation. Both of them felt the same about the stubborn, impulsive man between them. Gabriel removed the remnants of his broken mask, glaring at Jack's sleeping form in mild irritation as he put himself together with a bit of focus.

Jesse pet Gabe's back in agreement and to remind him they were still on the same side.

"Hey, it's alright." Jesse murmured, leaning over to kiss his temple. "Why keep that persona?"

"It'll follow me even if I ditch the mask, Jesse." Gabriel reminded, leaning into the affection despite the sour tone. "My abilities are a bit too unique."

Jesse looked around the battlefield, as Ana came over to give Ashe a hand up. The younger woman thanked her, brushing herself off and rubbing her ass, clearly a bit sore.

"I mean- no corpses are rotting here, Gabe." He murmured. "Don't doubt your ability to change your MO- we didn't even ask you to go after Hakim like that in the chaos." He leaned over, and Gabriel's face solidified into a knowing smile, meeting Jesse in a soft kiss.

"Jack owes me for that." He grumbled into Jesse, hugging him. "I get burst through the wall and he just rolls me off him to go wake up a downed target."

"You  _did_  hit him." Jesse pushed Gabriel's hood down, and used his thumb to tenderly massage into the side of his head, getting a soft purr reverberating in Gabe's throat as he tilted his head back in pleasure. "Let's call it even, considering he's out cold on the floor and will have such a bad crick in his neck from us carrying him."

"Bold of you to assume I'll help do that," Gabriel hummed lowly, and Jesse ruffled his hair and turned the gentle touch into a noogie as Gabriel laughed and pulled away, Ashe groaning loudly as Gabe decided to tickle Jesse.

"Get a fuckin' room you two, but before that, all hands on deck tying up this bastard."

"Which one?" Gabriel asked, clearly in a teasing mood after Jesse had lightened him up.

"Both, as far as I'm concerned." She replied haughtily, before Ana ribbed her lightly with the business end of her gun.

Ana threw Jesse the rope with her other hand. "Tie Hakim up. I'll handle Jack." She rolled her eyes as she yanked him to his feet with some difficulty, the man groggily responding to her but not yet able to snap out of it.

"Fuck'd you shoot me with?" He slurred, grabbing onto Ana's hand to make her work somewhat easier, the two best friends getting a head start on the walk back.

"Nanoboost." She said lightly, avoiding the question about what she'd drugged him with this time.

Ana's work was finished; the streets of Cairo were safe- for the time being. At least, they were safe enough where Ana wouldn't feel guilty when it was time to leave the mask in its safe place, while Jesse called her to let her know that they were leaving town, considerably better off than they all had been when they'd first arrived.

The moon was still high in the sky when they sealed the tomb, and made their way out of the necropolis, a path forward set for all of them on a rapidly converging path with the matter at hand.

XXXXX

A week later, Jack slept face down on Angela's couch, while Ana enjoyed a cup of tea on a lovely newly upholstered armchair. Ashe held a small white kitten close in her arms, her face tough, even though her voice belied her surly demeanor and outer appearance as she baby-talked to the tiny thing, as quietly as she could. Jesse and Gabriel sat in bar stools across from Jack, letting Ana do the talking, Gabriel dozing against Jesse's shoulder after they'd given him a light sedative to counteract any potential undiscovered programming.

"After Jack and I faked our deaths in the aftermath of Zurich, we both knew that we could  _never_  return to Overwatch. But, as it happened, neither of us liked being dead very much." She sipped her tea, turning to glance at Jesse and Gabriel, Jesse squeezing Gabriel as the man tensed unconsciously, face contorting with a third eye before relaxing again, Jesse's thumb rubbing circles into the scar where he'd removed his tracker. "None of us did, by the looks of it."

She breathed out in amusement, focusing back on Angela. "You seem stressed." She noted, as Angela attempted to take a sip from her own teacup, the thing shaking relentlessly in her grip, the blonde clearly trying to get her bearings in the midst of 4 dead friends, and one fresh face, all looking to her expectantly.

"Told them it'd be better if I called first," Jesse said, faking exasperation. "But then I remembered that  _someone_  here said I shoulda jus' come to them, the first time I wanted to, no need to explain before I showed this ugly mug."

Angela, her eyes wide in shock, dark circles just underscoring how stunned and frankly, traumatized by the reappearance of so many people she'd buried 6 years before, turned to him with a mechanical jerk of her head.

"Gabriel, shut him up before I do." She strangled the words out of her mouth; her face paler than Jesse had ever seen it before.

"With pleasure." Being addressed directly had perked Gabriel up from his daze, the long explanation of what had happened finally over. He tilted his head up, and Jesse was only too happy to accommodate her wishes and sink into a kiss with the man he'd thought for so long he'd never have again.

The print out image of the center group of Overwatch sat plain in the coffee table, Jesse having pulled it out sometime in the middle of their talk. Sojourn stood certain next to Jesse, young and cocky, while Reinhardt flanked his other side. Angela leaned over Torbjörn, the grumpy man standing with his arms crossed and his newly replaced arm prominent in the shot. Angela hadn't even joined Overwatch yet, still busy with medical school.

Jack, heroic and tall, stood in front of Reinhardt but behind Fareeha and Ana, the older woman flanked by Gabriel, scowling, exhausted in the shot. Jesse recalled that easily.

To the left, though, Sombra circled the squatting, smirking form who had been the snake in the grass, the real one.

"WISH YOU WERE HERE!" Was written on the other, as a photo of some unknown business room, many figures dressed as though they were at the Venetian carnival, sat many recognizable Talon figures, along with many others who were being revealed to them all.

The man in the lower right corner peered over his shoulder, and revealed an all too familiar face, and their next real target.

Gabriel glanced to where Jesse's eyes had gone to, and he frowned. "We'll deal with it." He promised. "Together."

"Together." Jesse echoed, wrapping his hand tighter around Gabriel's own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this! If you follow me on twitter, you might know i really really debated turning this into mcreji76, but I decided against that. However, expect a one shot with that exact pairing following the events of this fic in some unknown time in the future. my twitter is @harmicist, and I bitch about some things and talk about my fics and our boys ! 
> 
> If you did enjoy it, i love hearing from you guys, either on my twitter or on ao3. It really does make my day!


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